There were his friends, there liberty, there life and victory.

Six more of his formidable strides, and he would be out of the vault; out of the vault! a dozen of his vigorous leaps and he would reach the canoe.

Suddenly he felt his knees give way; his knees seemed powerless, his legs to yield beneath him.
"Oh! oh!" murmured he, "there is my weakness seizing me again! I can walk no further! What is this ?" Aramis perceived him through the opening, and unable to conceive what could induce him to stop thus--"Come on, Porthos! come on," he cried; "come quickly!" "Oh!" replied the giant, making an effort that contorted every muscle of his body--"oh! but I cannot." While saying these words, he fell upon his knees, but with his mighty hands he clung to the rocks, and raised himself up again.
"Quick! quick!" repeated Aramis, bending forward towards the shore, as if to draw Porthos towards him with his arms.
"Here I am," stammered Porthos, collecting all his strength to make one step more.
"In the name of Heaven! Porthos, make haste! the barrel will blow up!" "Make haste, monseigneur!" shouted the Bretons to Porthos, who was floundering as in a dream.
But there was no time; the explosion thundered, earth gaped, the smoke which hurled through the clefts obscured the sky; the sea flowed back as though driven by the blast of flame which darted from the grotto as if from the jaws of some gigantic fiery chimera; the reflux took the bark out twenty _toises_; the solid rocks cracked to their base, and separated like blocks beneath the operation of the wedge; a portion of the vault was carried up towards heaven, as if it had been built of cardboard; the green and blue and topaz conflagration and black lava of liquefactions clashed and combated an instant beneath a majestic dome of smoke; then oscillated, declined, and fell successively the mighty monoliths of rock which the violence of the explosion had not been able to uproot from the bed of ages; they bowed to each other like grave and stiff old men, then prostrating themselves, lay down forever in their dusty tomb.
This frightful shock seemed to restore Porthos the strength that he had lost; he arose, a giant among granite giants.

But at the moment he was flying between the double hedge of granite phantoms, these latter, which were no longer supported by the corresponding links, began to roll and totter round our Titan, who looked as if precipitated from heaven amidst rocks which he had just been launching.

Porthos felt the very earth beneath his feet becoming jelly-tremulous.