Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas, Alexandre part two

Of all that levelled surface of the ancient grotto of Locmaria, of all that flattened shore, one single little hillock attracted their eyes. Aramis never removed his from it; and at a distance out in the sea, in proportion as the shore receded, the menacing and proud mass of rock seemed to draw itself up, as formerly Porthos used to do, and raise a smiling and invincible head towards heaven,- like that of the honest and valiant friend, the strongest of the four, and yet the first dead. Strange destiny of these men of brass! The most simple of heart allied to the most crafty; strength of body guided by subtlety of mind; and in the decisive moment, when strength alone could save mind and body, a stone, a rock, a vile and material weight, triumphed over strength, and falling upon the body, drove out the mind.

Worthy Porthos! born to help other men, always ready to sacrifice himself for the safety of the weak, as if God had given him strength only for that purpose. In dying he thought he was only carrying out the conditions of his compact with Aramis,- a compact, however, which Aramis alone had drawn up, and which Porthos had known only to suffer by its terrible solidarity.

Noble Porthos! of what good are the chateaux filled with sumptuous furniture, the forests abounding in game, the lakes teeming with fish, the cellars gorged with wealth? Of what good are the lackeys in brilliant liveries, and in the midst of them Mousqueton, proud of the power delegated by thee? Oh noble Porthos! careful heaper up of treasures, was it worth while to labor to sweeten and gild life, to come upon a desert shore to the cries of sea-birds, and lay thyself with broken bones beneath a cold stone? Was it worth while, in short, noble Porthos, to heap so much gold, and not have even the distich of a poor poet engraven upon thy monument?

Valiant Porthos! He still, without doubt, sleeps, lost, forgotten, beneath the rock which the shepherds of the heath take for the gigantic abode of a dolmen. And so many twining branches, so many mosses, caressed by the bitter wind of the ocean, so many lichens have soldered the sepulchre to the earth, that the passer-by will never imagine that such a block of granite can ever have been supported by the shoulders of one man.

Aramis, still pale, still icy, his heart upon his lips, continued his fixed gaze even till, with the last ray of daylight, the shore faded on the horizon. Not a word escaped his lips; not a sigh rose from his deep breast. The superstitious Bretons looked at him trembling. The silence was not of a man, it was of a statue. In the mean time, with the first gray lines that descended from the heavens, the canoe had hoisted its little sail, which swelling with the kisses of the breeze, and carrying them rapidly from the coast, made brave way with its head towards Spain across the terrible gulf of Gascony, so rife with tempests. But scarcely half an hour after the sail had been hoisted, the rowers became inactive, reclined upon their benches, and making an eye-shade with their hands, pointed out to one another a white spot which appeared on the horizon, as motionless in appearance as is a gull rocked by the insensible respiration of the waves; But that which might have appeared motionless to the ordinary eyes was moving at a quick rate to the experienced eye of the sailor; that which appeared stationary on the ocean was cutting a rapid way through it. For some time, seeing the profound torpor in which their master was plunged, the sailors did not dare to rouse him, and satisfied themselves with exchanging their conjectures in low and anxious tones. Aramis, in fact, so vigilant, so active- Aramis, whose eye, like that of a lynx, watched without ceasing, and saw better by night than by day,- Aramis seemed to sleep in the despair of his soul. An hour passed thus during which daylight gradually disappeared, but during which also the sail in view gained so swiftly on the boat that Goennec, one of the three sailors, ventured to say aloud, “Monseigneur, we are chased!”

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