Then, as his watch was probably not over, the bandit climbed the oak again, and was soon so completely blended with the body of the tree that those he had left might have looked for him in vain in that aerial bastion.
The glade became narrower as they neared the entrance to the grotto.
Montbar reached it first, and from a hiding-place known to him he took a flint, a steel, some tinder, matches, and a torch.

The sparks flew, the tinder caught fire, the match cast a quivering bluish flame, to which succeeded the crackling, resinous flames of the torch.
Three or four paths were then visible.

Montbar took one without hesitation.

The path sank, winding into the earth, and turned back upon itself, as if the young men were retracing their steps underground, along the path that had brought them.

It was evident that they were following the windings of an ancient quarry, probably the one from which were built, nineteen hundred years earlier, the three Roman towns which are now mere villages, and Caesar's camp which overlooked them.
At intervals this subterraneous path was cut entirely across by a deep ditch, impassable except with the aid of a plank, that could, with a kick, be precipitated into the hollow beneath.