that direction. The
troop accordingly precipitated themselves to the left--the passage
gradually growing narrower. Biscarrat, with his hands stretched forward,
devoted to death, marched in advance of the muskets. "Come on! come on!"
exclaimed he, "I see daylight!"

"Strike, Porthos!" cried the sepulchral voice of Aramis.

Porthos breathed a heavy sigh--but he obeyed. The iron bar fell full and
direct upon the head of Biscarrat, who was dead before he had ended his
cry. Then the formidable lever rose ten times in ten seconds, and made
ten corpses. The soldiers could see nothing; they heard sighs and
groans; they stumbled over dead bodies, but as they had no conception of
the cause of all this, they came forward jostling each other. The
implacable bar, still falling, annihilated the first platoon, without a
single sound having warned the second, which was quietly advancing, only
this second platoon, commanded by the captain, had broken a thin fir,
growing on the shore, and, with its resinous branches twisted together,
the captain had made a flambeau. On arriving at the compartment where
Porthos, like the exterminating angel, had destroyed all he touched, the
first rank drew back in terror. No firing had replied to that of the
guards, and yet their way was stopped by a heap of dead bodies--they
literally walked in blood. Porthos was still behind his pillar. The
captain, on enlightening with the trembling flame of the fir this
frightful carnage, of which he in vain sought the cause, drew back
toward the pillar, behind which Porthos was concealed. Then a gigantic
hand issued from the shade, and fastened on the throat of the captain,
who uttered a stifled rattle; his stretched out arms beating the air,
the torch fell and was extinguished in blood. A second after, the corpse
of the captain fell close to the extinguished torch, and added another
body to the heap of dead which blocked up the passage. All this was
effected as mysteriously as if by magic. At hearing the rattling in the
throat of the captain, the soldiers who accompanied him had turned
round: they had caught a glimpse of his extended arms, his eyes starting
from their sockets, and then the torch fell and they were left in
darkness. From an unreflective, instinctive, mechanical feeling, the
lieutenant cried--"Fire!"

Immediately a volley of musketry flamed, thundered, roared in the
cavern, bringing down enormous fragments from the vaults. The cavern was
lighted