“Yes, general,” replied he.
“Ah! the French gentleman!” said the leader of the fishermen
to himself. “Peste! I have a great mind to charge you with
the commission, Menneville; he may know me. Light! light!”
This dialogue was pronounced at the back of the tent, and in
so low a voice that Monk could not hear a syllable of it; he
was, besides, talking with Athos. Menneville got himself
ready in the meantime, or rather received the orders of his
leader.
“Well?” said Monk.
“I am ready, general,” said the fisherman.
Monk, Athos, and the fisherman left the tent.
“It is impossible!” thought Athos. “What dream could put
that into my head?”
“Go forward; follow the middle causeway, and stretch out
your legs,” said Monk to the fisherman.
They were not twenty paces on their way when the same shadow
that had appeared to enter the tent came out of it again,
crawled along as far as the piles, and, protected by that
sort of parapet placed along the causeway, carefully
observed the march of the general. All three disappeared in
the night haze. They were walking towards Newcastle, the
white stones of which appeared to them like sepulchres.
After standing for a few seconds under the porch, they
penetrated into the interior. The door had been broken open
by hatchets. A post of four men slept in safety in a corner,
so certain were they that the attack would not take place on
that side.
“Will not these men be in your way?” said Monk to Athos.
“On the contrary, monsieur, they will assist in rolling out
the barrels, if your honor will permit them.”
Page 157
Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“You are right.”
The post, though fast asleep, roused up at the first steps
of the three visitors amongst the briars and grass that
invaded the porch. Monk gave the password, and penetrated
into the interior of the convent, preceded by the light. He
walked last, watching the least movement of Athos, his naked
dirk in his sleeve, and ready to plunge it into the back of
the gentleman at the first suspicious gesture he should see
him make. But Athos, with a firm and sure step, crossed the
chambers and courts.
Not a door, not a window was left in this building. The
doors had been burnt, some on the spot, and the charcoal of
them was still jagged with the action of the fire, which had
gone out of itself, powerless, no doubt, to get to the heart
of those massive joints of oak fastened together with iron
nails. As to the windows, all the panes having been broken,
night birds, alarmed by the torch, flew away through their
holes. At the same time, gigantic bats began to trace their
vast, silent circles around the intruders, whilst the light
of the torch made their shadows tremble on the high stone
walls. Monk concluded there could be no man in the convent,
since wild beasts and birds were there still, and fled away
at his approach.
After having passed the rubbish, and torn away more than one
branch of ivy that had made itself a guardian of the
solitude, Athos arrived at the vaults situated beneath the
great hall, but the entrance of which was from the chapel.
There he stopped. “Here we are, general,” said he.
“This, then, is the slab?”
“Yes.”
“Ay, and here is the ring — but the ring is sealed into the
stone.”
“We must have a lever.”
“That’s a thing very easy to find.”
Whilst looking round them, Athos and Monk perceived a little
ash of about three inches in diameter, which had shot up in
an angle of the wall, reaching a window, concealed by its
branches.
“Have you a knife?” said Monk to the fisherman.
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Cut down this tree; then.”
The fisherman obeyed, but not without notching his cutlass.
When the ash was cut and fashioned into the shape of a
lever, the three men penetrated into the vault.
“Stop where you are,” said Monk to the fisherman. “We are
going to dig up some powder; your light may be dangerous.”
The man drew back in a sort of terror, and faithfully kept