Michu replaced the stones above them with the dexterity of a mason.

As he finished, the sound of horses' feet and the voices of the gendarmes echoed in the darkness; but he quietly struck a match, lighted a resinous bit of wood and led the countess to the _in pace_, where there was still a piece of the candle with which he had first explored the caves.

An iron door of some thickness, eaten in several places by rust, had been put in good order by the bailiff, and could be fastened securely by bars slipping into holes in the wall on either side of it.

The countess, half dead with fatigue, sat down on a stone bench, above which there still remained an iron ring, the staple of which was embedded in the masonry.
"We have a salon to converse in," said Michu.

"The gendarmes may prowl as much as they like; the worst they could do would be to take our horses." "If they do that," said Laurence, "it would be the death of my cousins and the Messieurs d'Hauteserre.