Chapter 50

Chapter L
The Death of a Titan
At the moment when Porthos, more accustomed to the darkness than all these men coming from open daylight, was looking round him to see if in this night Aramis were not making him some signal, he felt his arm gently touched, and a voice low as a breath murmured in his ear, “Come.”

“Oh!” said Porthos.

“Hush! hush!” said Aramis, still more softly.

And amid the noise of the third brigade, which continued to advance, amid the imprecations of the guards left alive, of the dying breathing their last sigh, Aramis and Porthos glided imperceptibly along the granite walls of the cavern. Aramis led Porthos into the last compartment but one, and showed him in a hollow of the rocky wall a barrel of powder weighing from seventy to eighty pounds, to which he had just attached a match. “My friend,” said he to Porthos, “you will take this barrel, the match of which I am going to set fire to, and throw it amid our enemies; can you do so?”

“Parbleu!” replied Porthos; and he lifted the barrel with one hand. “Light it!”

“Stop,” said Aramis, “till they are all massed together, and then, my Jupiter, hurl your thunderbolt among them.”

“Light it,” repeated Porthos.

“On my part,” continued Aramis, “I will join our Bretons, help them to get the canoe to the sea, and will wait for you on the shore. Throw your barrel strongly, and hasten to us.”

“Light it,” said Porthos, a third time.

“But do you understand me?”

“Parbleu!” said Porthos, with laughter that he did not even attempt to restrain; “when a thing is explained to me, I understand it. Go, and give me the light.”

Aramis gave the burning match to Porthos, who held out his arm to him to press, his hands being engaged. Aramis pressed the arm of Porthos with both his hands, and fell back to the outlet of the cavern, where the three rowers awaited him.

Porthos, left alone, applied the spark bravely to the match. The spark- a feeble spark, first principle of a conflagration- shone in the darkness like a firefly, then was deadened against the match which it inflamed. Porthos enlivened the flame with his breath. The smoke was a little dispersed, and by the light of the sparkling match objects might for two seconds be distinguished. It was a short but a splendid spectacle,- that of this giant, pale, bloody, his countenance lighted by the fire of the match burning in surrounding darkness! The soldiers saw him; they saw the barrel he held in his hand; they at once understood what was going to happen. Then these men, already filled with fright at the sight of what had been accomplished, filled with terror at thinking of what was going to