The Duke's face was pale, but he glanced at his two Musketeers, and answered, "After you, monsieur!"
Then the four, in Indian file, turned through an opening, or rather a mere hole in the rock, to follow a low, narrow passage, in which, ere they had advanced three paces, the darkness became impenetrable. They groped their way in silence, each listening to the hard breathing of his predecessor. Bras-de-Fer, who was last, fervently hoping their ghostly enemy might not attack them until, as he would have expressed it, they could "deploy into line."
The corridor, however, as we may call it, grew wider and loftier at every step. Presently they marched upright, and two abreast. There was a constant drip from the damp stone that encircled them, and the hard smooth surface on which they trod felt cool and refreshing to their feet.
Bras-de-Fer could not restrain a sneeze. It resounded above their heads, and died away farther and fainter in a hundred whispering echoes.
Bartoletti started violently, and the Duke's hand went to his sword. Then the magician halted, pulled a vial from his breast, and dipping a match in it, produced a strong rose-coloured flame, from which he lit the small lamp that hung at his belt.
Whilst the match flared and shone, they saw plainly for several yards in every direction. They were in a low vaulted cavern, hewn, to all appearance, by no mortal hands, out of the rock. They stood on a slightly-elevated platform, and at their feet lay a glistening sheet of black that could only be water. It was, however, a hasty examination, for the match soon spent itself, and Bartoletti's lamp gave but light enough, as Bras-de-Fer observed, "to show how dark it was."
"Are we on the banks of the Seine or the Styx?" asked the Regent, jestingly, yet with a slight tremor in his voice.
"Man knoweth not whither this dark stream may lead," replied Bartoletti, solemnly, lighting at the same time a spare wick of his lamp, to embark it on a morsel of wood which he pushed into the current.
For several minutes, as it seemed to their watching eyes, the light floated farther and farther, till swallowed up by degrees in the black distance.
