“Look.”
Louis looked all round him; but by the light of the lamp which the masked figure raised for the purpose, he could perceive nothing but the damp walls which glistened here and there with the slimy traces of the snail. “Oh—oh!—a dungeon,” cried the king.
“No, a subterranean passage.”
“Which leads—?”
“Will you be good enough to follow us?”
“I shall not stir from hence!” cried the king.
“If you are obstinate, my dear young friend,” replied the taller of the two, “I will lift you up in my arms, and roll you up in your own cloak, and if you should happen to be stifled, why—so much the worse for you.”
As he said this, he disengaged from beneath his cloak a hand of which Milo of Crotona would have envied him the possession, on the day when he had that unhappy idea of rending his last oak. The king dreaded violence, for he could well believe that the two men into whose power he had fallen had not gone so far with any idea of drawing back, and that they would consequently be ready to proceed to extremities, if necessary. He shook his head and said: “It seems I have fallen into the hands of a couple of assassins. Move on, then.”
Neither of the men answered a word to this remark. The one who carried the lantern walked first, the king followed him, while the second masked figure closed the procession. In this manner they passed along a winding gallery of some length, with as many staircases leading out of it as are to be found in the mysterious and gloomy palaces of Ann Radcliffe’s creation. All these windings and turnings, during which the king heard the sound of running water over his head, ended at last in a long corridor closed by an iron door. The figure with the lamp opened the door with one of the keys he wore suspended at his girdle, where, during the whole of the brief journey, the king had heard them rattle. As soon as the door was opened and admitted the air, Louis recognized the balmy odors that trees exhale in hot summer nights. He paused, hesitatingly, for a moment or two; but the huge sentinel who followed him thrust him out of the subterranean passage.
“Another blow,” said the king, turning towards the one who had just had the audacity to touch his sovereign; “what do you intend to do with the king of France?”