several voices from the outside, coming
like a whirlwind into the cave.

"Reply," said Aramis.

"Here am I!" cried Biscarrat.

"Now, begone; we depend upon your loyalty." And he left his hold of the
young man, who hastily returned toward the light.

"Biscarrat! Biscarrat!" cried the voices, still nearer. And the shadows
of several human forms projected into the interior of the grotto.

Biscarrat rushed to meet his friends in order to stop them, and met them
just as they were adventuring into the cave. Aramis and Porthos listened
with the intense attention of men whose life depends upon a breath of
air.

"Oh! oh!" exclaimed one of the guards, as he came to the light, "how
pale you are!"

"Pale!" cried another, "you ought to say livid."

"I!" said the young man, endeavoring to collect his faculties.

"In the name of Heaven! what has happened to you?" exclaimed all voices.

"You have not a drop of blood in your veins, my poor friend," said one
of them, laughing.

"Messieurs, it is serious," said another, "he is going to faint; does
any one of you happen to have any salts?" And they all laughed.

All these interpellations, all these jokes crossed each other round
Biscarrat as the balls cross each other in the fire of a _melee_. He
recovered himself amid a deluge of interrogations.

"What do you suppose I have seen?" asked he. "I was too hot when I
entered the grotto, and I have been struck with the cold; that is all."

"But the dogs, the dogs, have you seen them again--did you see anything
of them--do you know anything about them?"

"I suppose they have gone out by another way."

"Messieurs," said one of the young men, "there is in that which is going
on, in the paleness and silence of our friend, a mystery which Biscarrat
will not, or cannot reveal. Only, and that is a certainty, Biscarrat has
seen something in the grotto.

"Well, for my part, I am very curious to see what it is, even if it were
the devil! To the grotto! messieurs, to the grotto!"

"To the grotto!" repeated all the voices. And the echo of the cavern
carried like a menace to Porthos and Aramis. "To the grotto! to the
grotto!"

Biscarrat threw himself before his companions. "Messieurs! messieurs!"
cried he, "in the name of Heaven! do not go in!"

"Why, what is there so terrific in the cavern?" asked several at once.
"Come, speak, Biscarrat."

"Decidedly, it is the devil he has seen," repeated he who had before
advanced that hypoth