Alexandre Dumas: The Man in the Iron Mask

Chapter 47: The Grotto of Locmaria. (continued)

"So be it; I wish it may, monseigneur," continued Yves; "but your highness knows very well that to make it reach the extremity of the trench, there is an enormous stone to be lifted - that under which the fox always passes, and which closes the trench like a door."

"It can be raised," said Porthos; "that is nothing."

"Oh! I know that monseigneur has the strength of ten men," replied Yves; "but that is giving him a great deal of trouble."

"I think the skipper may be right," said Aramis; "let us try the open-air passage."

"The more so, monseigneur," continued the fisherman, "that we should not be able to embark before day, it will require so much labor, and that as soon as daylight appears, a good vedette placed outside the grotto would be necessary, indispensable even, to watch the maneuvers of the lighters or cruisers that are on the look-out for us."

"Yes, yes, Yves, your reasons are good; we will go by the beach."

And the three robust Bretons went to the boat, and were beginning to place their rollers underneath it to put it in motion, when the distant barking of dogs was heard, proceeding from the interior of the island.

Aramis darted out of the grotto, followed by Porthos. Dawn just tinted with purple and white the waves and plain; through the dim light, melancholy fir-trees waved their tender branches over the pebbles, and long flights of crows were skimming with their black wings the shimmering fields of buckwheat. In a quarter of an hour it would be clear daylight; the wakened birds 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, now seemed to come from a deep gorge within about a league of the grotto.

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