for an instant by this discharge, and then immediately returned
to a darkness rendered still thicker by the smoke. To this succeeded a
profound silence, broken only by the steps of the third brigade, now
entering the cavern.

CHAPTER CXXIV.

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!" said Aramis, if possible, 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, rattling
their last sigh, Aramis and Porthos glided imperceptibly along the
granite walls of the cavern. Aramis led Porthos into the last but one
compartment, 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, and help them
to get the canoe to the sea. I will wait for you on the shore; launch it
strongly, and hasten to us."

"Light it," said Porthos a third time.

"But do you understand me?"

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

Aramis gave the burning match to Porthos, who held out his arm to him,
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 fire-fly, 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,