“I think the skipper may be right,” said Aramis; “let us try the open-air passage.”
“The more so, monseigneur,” continued the fisherman, “that we should not be able to embark before day, it will require so much labor, and that as soon as daylight appears, a good vedette placed outside the grotto would be necessary, indispensable even, to watch the maneuvers of the lighters or cruisers that are on the look-out for us.”
“Yes, yes, Yves, your reasons are good; we will go by the beach.”
And the three robust Bretons went to the boat, and were beginning to place their rollers underneath it to put it in motion, when the distant barking of dogs was heard, proceeding from the interior of the island.
Aramis darted out of the grotto, followed by Porthos. Dawn just tinted with purple and white the waves and plain; through the dim light, melancholy fir-trees waved their tender branches over the pebbles, and long flights of crows were skimming with their black wings the shimmering fields of buckwheat. In a quarter of an hour it would be clear daylight; the wakened birds announced it to all nature. The barkings which had been heard, which had stopped the three fishermen engaged in moving the boat, and had brought Aramis and Porthos out of the cavern, now seemed to come from a deep gorge within about a league of the grotto.
“It is a pack of hounds,” said Porthos; “the dogs are on a scent.”
“Who can be hunting at such a moment as this?” said Aramis.
“And this way, particularly,” continued Porthos, “where they might expect the army of the royalists.”
“The noise comes nearer. Yes, you are right, Porthos, the dogs are on a scent. But, Yves!” cried Aramis, “come here! come here!”
Yves ran towards him, letting fall the cylinder which he was about to place under the boat when the bishop’s call interrupted him.