Chapter 49 - Page 2

blue sea appeared to the delighted Bretons. They then began to lift the boat over the barricade. Twenty more toises, and it might glide into the ocean. It was during this time that the company arrived, was drawn up by the captain, and disposed for either an escalade or an assault.

Aramis watched over everything, to favor the labors of his friends. He saw the reinforcements; he counted the men; he convinced himself at a single glance of the insurmountable peril to which a fresh combat would expose them. To escape by sea at the moment the cavern was about to be invaded, was impossible. In fact, the daylight which had just been admitted to the last two compartments had exposed to the soldiers the boat rolling towards the sea, and the two rebels within musket-shot; and one of their discharges would riddle the boat if it did not kill the five navigators. Besides, supposing everything,- suppose the boat should escape with the men on board of it, how could the alarm be suppressed, how could notice to the royal lighters be prevented? What could hinder the poor canoe, followed by sea and watched from the shore, from succumbing before the end of the day? Aramis, digging his hands into his gray hair with rage, invoked the assistance of God and the assistance of the devil. Calling to Porthos, who was working alone more than all the rollers,- whether of flesh or of wood,- “My friend,” said he, “our adversaries have just received a reinforcement.”

“Ah, ah!” said Porthos, quietly, “what is to be done, then?”

“To recommence the combat,” said Aramis, “is hazardous.”

“Yes,” said Porthos, “for it is difficult to suppose that out of two one should not be killed; and certainly, if one of us were killed, the other would get himself killed also.” Porthos spoke these words with that natural heroism which, with him, was greater than all material forces.

Aramis felt it like a spur to his heart. “We shall neither of us be killed if you do what I tell you, friend Porthos.”

“Tell me what?”

“These people are coming down into the grotto.”

“Yes.”

“We could kill about fifteen of them, but not more.”

“How many are there in all?” asked Porthos.

“They have received a reinforcement of seventy-five men.”

“Seventy-five and five, eighty. Ah, ah!” said Porthos.

“If they fire all at once they will riddle us with balls.”

“Certainly they will.”

“Without reckoning,” added Aramis, “that the detonations might occasion fallings in of the cavern.”

“Ay,” said Porthos; “a piece of falling rock just now grazed my