He was already on the other side of the passage, when,
Bras D’acier and Lachaussée Outwitted
scrambling forward, he stood once more on the broken masses of the quarry, brandishing his iron weapon. And then, with Herculean force, he drove it against the side of the chamber which Lachaussée had pointed out as adjoining the Bièvre. Another and another blow succeeded, whilst a foaming stream followed the spike every time he withdrew it, until, weakened by the ruptures, an immense portion of the gypsum gave way, and, with the roar of a mighty cataract, an enormous body of water burst through the wall, carrying everything before it, as it rushed at once, leaping and chafing, to every part of the chamber.
As the irruption took place, Benoit leaped back to the aperture he had himself broken open. Lachaussée and Bras d’Acier, in the alarm of the moment, prepared to follow him, for the lashing water had already reached nearly unto their knees. But the force of the torrent drove them back, and as it rushed to the readiest and lowest outlet—that leading to the large vault—hurried them along with it, washing down all the barrier that had been made in the archway by the fallen blocks. By the lamp which still hung from the ceiling, Benoit saw them whirled through the narrow passage; and the next instant the water reached the level of the gallery wherein he stood.
‘Now! now, sweetheart, make use of your legs, if ever you did!’ he cried to Louise, who had remained close to him. ‘We must travel fast to outstrip it; but, thank heaven, it is all up-hill. Ah—lash away; we shall beat you yet.’
He addressed the last words to some waves which dashed over the broken gypsum at his feet; for, in spite of the vast carrières into which it had burst, the water was rising rapidly, in consequence of the inequalities of their levels.
Then, seizing Louise, they fled rapidly, hand in hand, along the gallery—which was altogether a different one from that by which she had arrived—towards the end of it, where he had taken the precaution to leave a light, chased by the furious stream that was hurrying with a noise like thunder after them, coupled with the crashing and falling of the blocks of limestone, which continually broke down before its resistless force.
Fast and faster they sped through the labyrinth of vaults—now crouching along a rough and narrow passage, and now flying over the hard floor of a large vault, or scrambling across an eboulement of the gypsum. And louder came the roar of the water, as it seemed animated in the pursuit by a spirit of life. With the courage which despair gives to the weakest, Louise kept up with and sometimes out-stripped her companion, who cheered her as he best could; and whilst he threaded the intricate way with a readiness that showed his perfect familiarity with the carrières, promised her a safe asylum when they left them.
At last they emerged; not, however, into the pure air, but the damp and dim obscurity of a vault under one of the questionable dwellings in the Rue d’Enfer. This street was then inhabited almost entirely by the low and criminal population, which French statists have named ‘les classes dangereuses.’