ple and white the waves and the plain; through the dim light the
young melancholy firs waved their tender branches over the pebbles, and
long flights of crows were skimming with their black wings over the thin
fields of buckwheat. In a quarter of an hour it would be clear daylight;
the awakened birds joyously announced it to all nature. The barkings
which had been heard, which had stopped the three fishermen engaged in
moving the boat, and had brought Aramis and Porthos out of the cavern,
were prolonged in a deep gorge within about a league of the grotto.

"It is a pack of hounds," said Porthos; "the dogs are upon a scent."

"Who can be hunting at such a moment as this?" said Aramis.

"And this way, particularly," continued Porthos, "this way, where they
may expect the army of the royalists."

"The noise comes nearer. Yes, you are right, Porthos, the dogs are on a
scent. But, Yves!" cried Aramis, "come here! come here!"

Yves ran toward him, letting fall the cylinder which he was about to
place under the boat when the bishop's call interrupted him.

"What is the meaning of this hunt, patron?" said Porthos.

"Eh! monseigneur, I cannot understand it," replied the Breton. "It is
not at such a moment that the Seigneur de Locmaria would hunt. No, and
yet the dogs--"

"Unless they have escaped from the kennel."

"No," said Goenne, "they are not the Seigneur de Locmaria's hounds."

"In common prudence," said Aramis, "let us go back into the grotto; the
voices evidently draw nearer, we shall soon know what we have to trust
to."

They re-entered, but had scarcely proceeded a hundred steps in the
darkness, when a noise like the hoarse sigh of a creature in distress
resounded through the cavern, and breathless, rapid, terrified, a fox
passed like a flash of lightning before the fugitives, leaped over the
boat and disappeared, leaving behind it its sour scent, which was
perceptible for several seconds under the low vaults of the cave.

"The fox!" cried the Bretons, with the joyous surprise of hunters.

"Accursed chance!" cried the bishop, "our retreat is discovered."

"How so?" said Porthos, "are we afraid of a fox?"

"Eh! my friend, what do you mean by that, and why do you name the fox?
It is not the fox alone, pardieu! But don't you know, Porthos, that
after the fox come hounds, and after the hounds men?"

Porthos hung his head. As if to confirm the words of Aramis, they heard
the yelping pack come with frightful