Furious vortices, hissings of sulphur and nitre, devouring ravages of the fire, the terrible thunder of the explosion,- this is what the second which followed the two seconds we have described disclosed in that cavern, equal in horrors to a cavern of demons. The rocks split like planks of deal under the axe. A jet of fire, smoke, and debris sprang up from the middle of the grotto, enlarging as it mounted. The great walls of silex tottered and fell upon the sand; and the sand itself- an instrument of pain when launched from its hardened bed- riddled the face with its myriads of cutting atoms. Cries, howlings, imprecations, and lives,- all were extinguished in one great crash.
The first three compartments became a gulf into which fell back again, according to its weight, every vegetable, mineral, or human fragment. Then the lighter sand and ashes fell in their turns, stretching like a gray winding-sheet and smoking over these dismal remains. And now seek in this burning tomb, in this subterranean volcano,- seek for the King’s Guards with their blue coats laced with silver. Seek for the officers brilliant in gold; seek for the arms upon which they depended for their defence; seek among the stones that have killed them, upon the ground that bore them. One single man has made of all this a chaos more confused, more shapeless, more terrible than the chaos which existed an hour before God conceived the idea of creating the world. There remained nothing of the three compartments,- nothing by which God could have known his own work.
As to Porthos, after having hurled the barrel of powder amid his enemies, he had fled as Aramis had directed him and had gained the last compartment, into which air, light, and sunshine penetrated through the opening. And scarcely had he turned the angle which separated the third compartment from the fourth, when he perceived at a hundred paces from him the boat dancing on the waves. There were his friends; there was liberty; there was life after victory. Six more of his formidable strides and he would be out of the vault; out of the vault, two or three vigorous springs and he would reach the canoe. Suddenly he felt his knees give way; his knees appeared powerless, his legs yielded under him.
“Oh, oh!” murmured he, “there is my fatigue seizing me again! I can walk no farther! What is this?”
Aramis perceived him through the opening; unable to conceive what could induce him to stop thus, he cried, “Come on, Porthos! come on! come quickly!”
“Oh!” replied the giant, making an effort which acted upon every muscle of his body, “oh! but I cannot!” While saying these words he fell upon his knees, but with his robust hands he clung to the rocks, and raised himself up again.
“Quick! quick!” repeated Aramis, bending forward towards the shore, as if to draw Porthos to him with his arms.
“Here I am,” stammered Porthos, collecting all his strength to make one step more.
“In the name of Heaven, Porthos, make haste! the barrel will blow up!”
“Make haste, Monseigneur!” shouted the Bretons to Porthos, who was floundering as in a dream.
But there was no longer time; the explosion resounded, the earth gaped, the smoke which rushed through the large fissures obscured the sky; the sea flowed back as if driven by the blast of fire which darted from the grotto as if from the jaws of a gigantic chimera; the reflux carried the boat out twenty toises; the rocks cracked to their base, and separated like blocks under the operation of wedges; a portion of the vault was carried up towards heaven, as if by rapid currents; the rose-colored and green fire of the sulphur, the black lava of the argillaceous liquefactions clashed and combated for an instant beneath a majestic dome of smoke; then at first oscillated, then declined, then fell successively the long angles of rock, which the violence of the explosion had not been able to uproot from their bed of ages; they bowed to one another like grave and slow old men, then prostrated themselves, and were embedded forever in their dusty tomb.