“The cellar—what cellar?”
“Our landlord’s, to be sure. Mousqueton is propped against the door and
here’s the key.”
“Bravo!” said Aramis, “how did you manage it?”
“Like everything else, with money; but it cost me dear.”
“How much?” asked Athos.
“Five hundred pounds.”
“And where did you get so much money?” said Athos. “Had you, then, that
sum?”
“The queen’s famous diamond,” answered D’Artagnan, with a sigh.
“Ah, true,” said Aramis. “I recognized it on your finger.”
“You bought it back, then, from Monsieur des Essarts?” asked Porthos.
“Yes, but it was fated that I should not keep it.”
“So, then, we are all right as regards the executioner,” said Athos;
“but unfortunately every executioner has his assistant, his man, or
whatever you call him.”
“And this one had his,” said D’Artagnan; “but, as good luck would have
it, just as I thought I should have two affairs to manage, our friend
was brought home with a broken leg. In the excess of his zeal he had
accompanied the cart containing the scaffolding as far as the king’s
window, and one of the crossbeams fell on his leg and broke it.”
“Ah!” cried Aramis, “that accounts for the cry I heard.”
“Probably,” said D’Artagnan, “but as he is a thoughtful young man he
promised to send four expert workmen in his place to help those already
at the scaffold, and wrote the moment he was brought home to Master Tom
Lowe, an assistant carpenter and friend of his, to go down to
Whitehall, with three of his friends. Here’s the letter he sent by a
messenger, for sixpence, who sold it to me for a guinea.”
“And what on earth are you going to do with it?” asked Athos.
“Can’t you guess, my dear Athos? You, who speak English like John Bull
himself, are Master Tom Lowe, we, your three companions. Do you
understand it _now?_”
Athos uttered a cry of joy and admiration, ran to a closet and drew
forth workmen’s clothes, which the four friends immediately put on;
they then left the hotel, Athos carrying a saw, Porthos a vise, Aramis
an axe and D’Artagnan a hammer and some nails.
The letter from the executioner’s assistant satisfied the master
carpenter that those were the men he expected.
Chapter LXV.
The Workmen.
Toward midnight Charles heard a great noise beneath his window. It
arose from blows of hammer and hatchet, clinking of pincers and
cranching of saws.
Lying dressed upon his bed, the noise awoke him with a start and found
a gloomy echo in his heart. He could not endure it, and sent Parry to
ask the sentinel to beg the workmen to strike more gently and not
disturb the last slumber of one who had been their king. The sentinel
was unwilling to leave his post, but allowed Parry to pass.
Arriving at the window Parry found an unfinished scaffold, over which
they were nailing a covering of black serge. Raised to the height of
twenty feet, so as to be on a level with the window, it had two lower
stories. Parry, odious as was this sight to him, sought for those among
some eight or ten workmen who were making the most noise; and fixed on
two men, who were loosening the last hooks of the iron balcony.
“My friends,” said Parry, mounting the scaffold and standing beside
them, “would you work a little more quietly? The king wishes to get a
sleep.”
One of the two, who was standing up, was of gigantic size and was
driving a pick with all his might into the wall, whilst the other,
kneeling beside him, was collecting the pieces of stone. The face of
the first was lost to Parry in the darkness; but as the second turned
around and placed his finger on his lips Parry started back in
amazement.
“Very well, very well,” said the workman aloud, in excellent English.
“Tell the king that if he sleeps badly to-night he will sleep better
to-morrow night.”
These blunt words, so terrible if taken literally, were received by the
other workmen with a roar of laughter. But Parry withdrew, thinking he
was dreaming.
Charles was impatiently awaiting his return. At the moment he
re-entered, the sentinel who guarded the door put his head through the
opening, curious as to what the king was doing. The king was lying on
his bed, resting on his elbow. Parry closed the door and approaching
the king, his face radiant with joy:
“Sire,” he said, in a low voice, “do you know who these workmen are who
are making so much noise?”
“I? No; how would you have me know?”
Parry bent his head and whispered to the king: “It is the Comte de la
Fère and his friends.”
“Raising my scaffold!” cried the king, astounded.
“Yes, and at the same time making a hole in the wall.”
The king clasped his hands and raised his eyes to Heaven; then leaping
down from his bed he went to the window, and pulling aside the curtain
tried to distinguish the figures outside, but in vain.
Parry was not wrong. It was Athos he had recognized, and Porthos who
was boring a hole through the wall.
This hole communicated with a kind of loft—the space between the floor
of the king’s room and the ceiling of the one below it. Their plan was
to pass through the hole they were making into this loft and cut out
from below a piece of the flooring of the king’s room, so as to form a
kind of trap-door.
Through this the king was to escape the next night, and, hidden by the
black covering of the scaffold, was to change his dress for that of a
workman, slip out with his deliverers, pass the sentinels, who would
suspect nothing, and so reach the skiff that was waiting for him at
Greenwich.
Day gilded the tops of the houses. The aperture was finished and Athos
passed through it, carrying the clothes destined for the king wrapped
in black cloth, and the tools with which he was to open a communication
with the king’s room. He had only two hours’ work to do to open
communication with the king and, according to the calculations of the
four friends, they had the entire day before them, since, the
executioner being absent, another must be sent for to Bristol.
D’Artagnan returned to change his workman’s clothes for his
chestnut-colored suit, and Porthos to put on his red doublet. As for
Aramis, he went off to the bishop’s palace to see if he could possibly
pass in with Juxon to the king’s presence. All three agreed to meet at
noon in Whitehall Place to see how things went on.
Before leaving the scaffold Aramis had approached the opening where
Athos was concealed to tell him that he was about to make an attempt to
gain another interview with the king.
“Adieu, then, and be of good courage,” said Athos. “Report to the king
the condition of affairs. Say to him that when he is alone it will help
us if he will knock on the floor, for then I can continue my work in
safety. Try, Aramis, to keep near the king. Speak loud, very loud, for
they will be listening at the door. If there is a sentinel within the
apartment, kill him without hesitation. If there are two, let Parry
kill one and you the other. If there are three, let yourself be slain,
but save the king.”
“Be easy,” said Aramis; “I will take two poniards and give one to
Parry. Is that all?”
“Yes, go; but urge the king strongly not to stand on false generosity.
While you are fighting if there is a fight, he must flee. The trap once
replaced over his head, you being on the trap, dead or alive, they will
need at least ten minutes to find the hole by which he has escaped. In
those ten minutes we shall have gained the road and the king will be
saved.”
“Everything shall be done as you say, Athos. Your hand, for perhaps we
shall not see each other again.”
Athos put his arm around Aramis’s neck and embraced him.
“For you,” he said. “Now if I die, say to D’Artagnan that I love him as
a son, and embrace him for me. Embrace also our good and brave Porthos.
Adieu.”
“Adieu,” said Aramis. “I am as sure now that the king will be saved as
I am sure that I clasp the most loyal hand in the world.”
Aramis parted from Athos, went down from the scaffold in his turn and
took his way to the hotel, whistling the air of a song in praise of
Cromwell. He found the other two friends sitting at table before a good
fire, drinking a bottle of port and devouring a cold chicken. Porthos
was cursing the infamous parliamentarians; D’Artagnan ate in silence,
revolving in his mind the most audacious plans.
Aramis related what had been agreed upon. D’Artagnan approved with a
movement of the head and Porthos with his voice.
“Bravo!” he said; “besides, we shall be there at the time of the
flight. What with D’Artagnan, Grimaud and Mousqueton, we can manage to
dispatch eight of them. I say nothing about Blaisois, for he is only
fit to hold the horses. Two minutes a man makes four minutes.
Mousqueton will lose another, that’s five; and in five minutes we shall
have galloped a quarter of a league.”
Aramis swallowed a hasty mouthful, gulped a glass of wine and changed
his clothes.
“Now,” said he, “I’m off to the bishop’s. Take care of the executioner,
D’Artagnan.”
“All right. Grimaud has relieved Mousqueton and has his foot on the
cellar door.”
“Well, don’t be inactive.”
“Inactive, my dear fellow! Ask Porthos. I pass my life upon my legs.”
Aramis again presented himself at the bishop’s. Juxon consented the
more readily to take him with him, as he would require an assistant
priest in case the king should wish to communicate. Dressed as Aramis
had been the night before, the bishop got into his carriage, and the
former, more disguised by his pallor and sad countenance than his
deacon’s dress, got in by his side. The carriage stopped at the door of
the palace.
It was about nine o’clock in the morning.
Nothing was changed. The ante-rooms were still full of soldiers, the
passages still lined by guards. The king was already sanguine, but when
he perceived Aramis his hope turned to joy. He embraced Juxon and
pressed the hand of Aramis. The bishop affected to speak in a loud
voice, before every one, of their previous interview. The king replied
that the words spoken in that interview had borne their fruit, and that
he desired another under the same conditions. Juxon turned to those
present and begged them to leave him and his assistant alone with the
king. Every one withdrew. As soon as the door was closed:
“Sire,” said Aramis, speaking rapidly, “you are saved; the London
executioner has vanished. His assistant broke his leg last night
beneath your majesty’s window—the cry we heard was his—and there is no
executioner nearer at hand than Bristol.”
“But the Comte de la Fère?” asked the king.
“Two feet below you; take the poker from the fireplace and strike three
times on the floor. He will answer you.”
The king did so, and the moment after, three muffled knocks, answering
the given signal, sounded beneath the floor.
“So,” said Charles, “he who knocks down there——”
“Is the Comte de la Fère, sire,” said Aramis. “He is preparing a way
for your majesty to escape. Parry, for his part, will raise this slab
of marble and a passage will be opened.”
“Oh, Juxon,” said the king, seizing the bishop’s two hands in his own,
“promise that you will pray all your life for this gentleman and for
the other that you hear beneath your feet, and for two others also,
who, wherever they may be, are on the watch for my safety.”
“Sire,” replied Juxon, “you shall be obeyed.”
Meanwhile, the miner underneath was heard working away incessantly,
when suddenly an unexpected noise resounded in the passage. Aramis
seized the poker and gave the signal to stop; the noise came nearer and
nearer. It was that of a number of men steadily approaching. The four
men stood motionless. All eyes were fixed on the door, which opened
slowly and with a kind of solemnity.
A parliamentary officer, clothed in black and with a gravity that
augured ill, entered, bowed to the king, and unfolding a parchment,
read the sentence, as is usually done to criminals before their
execution.
“What is this?” said Aramis to Juxon.
Juxon replied with a sign which meant that he knew no more than Aramis
about it.
“Then it is for to-day?” asked the king.
“Was not your majesty warned that it was to take place this morning?”
“Then I must die like a common criminal by the hand of the London
executioner?”
“The London executioner has disappeared, your majesty, but a man has
offered his services instead. The execution will therefore only be
delayed long enough for you to arrange your spiritual and temporal
affairs.”
A slight moisture on his brow was the only trace of emotion that
Charles evinced, as he learned these tidings. But Aramis was livid. His
heart ceased beating, he closed his eyes and leaned upon the table.
Charles perceived it and took his hand.
“Come, my friend,” said he, “courage.” Then he turned to the officer.
“Sir, I am ready. There is but little reason why I should delay you.
Firstly, I wish to communicate; secondly, to embrace my children and
bid them farewell for the last time. Will this be permitted me?”
“Certainly,” replied the officer, and left the room.
Aramis dug his nails into his flesh and groaned aloud.
“Oh! my lord bishop,” he cried, seizing Juxon’s hands, “where is
Providence? where is Providence?”
“My son,” replied the bishop, with firmness, “you see Him not, because
the passions of the world conceal Him.”
“My son,” said the king to Aramis, “do not take it so to heart. You ask
what God is doing. God beholds your devotion and my martyrdom, and
believe me, both will have their reward. Ascribe to men, then, what is
happening, and not to God. It is men who drive me to death; it is men
who make you weep.”
“Yes, sire,” said Aramis, “yes, you are right. It is men whom I should
hold responsible, and I will hold them responsible.”
“Be seated, Juxon,” said the king, falling upon his knees. “I have now
to confess to you. Remain, sir,” he added to Aramis, who had moved to
leave the room. “Remain, Parry. I have nothing to say that cannot be
said before all.”
Juxon sat down, and the king, kneeling humbly before him, began his
confession.
Chapter LXVI.
Remember!
The mob had already assembled when the confession terminated. The
king’s children next arrived—the Princess Charlotte, a beautiful,
fair-haired child, with tears in her eyes, and the Duke of Gloucester,
a boy eight or nine years old, whose tearless eyes and curling lip
revealed a growing pride. He had wept all night long, but would not
show his grief before the people.
Charles’s heart melted within him at the sight of those two children,
whom he had not seen for two years and whom he now met at the moment of
death. He turned to brush away a tear, and then, summoning up all his
firmness, drew his daughter toward him, recommending her to be pious
and resigned. Then he took the boy upon his knee.
“My son,” he said to him, “you saw a great number of people in the
streets as you came here. These men are going to behead your father. Do
not forget that. Perhaps some day they will want to make you king,
instead of the Prince of Wales, or the Duke of York, your elder
brothers. But you are not the king, my son, and can never be so while
they are alive. Swear to me, then, never to let them put a crown upon
your head unless you have a legal right to the crown. For one
day—listen, my son—one day, if you do so, they will doom you to
destruction, head and crown, too, and then you will not be able to die
with a calm conscience, as I die. Swear, my son.”
The child stretched out his little hand toward that of his father and
said, “I swear to your majesty.”
“Henry,” said Charles, “call me your father.”
“Father,” replied the child, “I swear to you that they shall kill me
sooner than make me king.”
“Good, my child. Now kiss me; and you, too, Charlotte. Never forget
me.”
“Oh! never, never!” cried both the children, throwing their arms around
their father’s neck.
“Farewell,” said Charles, “farewell, my children. Take them away,
Juxon; their tears will deprive me of the courage to die.”
Juxon led them away, and this time the doors were left open.
Meanwhile, Athos, in his concealment, waited in vain the signal to
recommence his work. Two long hours he waited in terrible inaction. A
deathlike silence reigned in the room above. At last he determined to
discover the cause of this stillness. He crept from his hole and stood,
hidden by the black drapery, beneath the scaffold. Peeping out from the
drapery, he could see the rows of halberdiers and musketeers around the
scaffold and the first ranks of the populace swaying and groaning like
the sea.
“What is the matter, then?” he asked himself, trembling more than the
wind-swayed cloth he was holding back. “The people are hurrying on, the
soldiers under arms, and among the spectators I see D’Artagnan. What is
he waiting for? What is he looking at? Good God! have they allowed the
headsman to escape?”
Suddenly the dull beating of muffled drums filled the square. The sound
of heavy steps was heard above his head. The next moment the very
planks of the scaffold creaked with the weight of an advancing
procession, and the eager faces of the spectators confirmed what a last
hope at the bottom of his heart had prevented him till then believing.
At the same moment a well-known voice above him pronounced these words:
“Colonel, I want to speak to the people.”
Athos shuddered from head to foot. It was the king speaking on the
scaffold.
In fact, after taking a few drops of wine and a piece of bread,
Charles, weary of waiting for death, had suddenly decided to go to meet
it and had given the signal for movement. Then the two wings of the
window facing the square had been thrown open, and the people had seen
silently advancing from the interior of the vast chamber, first, a
masked man, who, carrying an axe in his hand, was recognized as the
executioner. He approached the block and laid his axe upon it. Behind
him, pale indeed, but marching with a firm step, was Charles Stuart,
who advanced between two priests, followed by a few superior officers
appointed to preside at the execution and attended by two files of
partisans who took their places on opposite sides of the scaffold.
The sight of the masked man gave rise to a prolonged sensation. Every
one was full of curiosity as to who that unknown executioner could be
who presented himself so opportunely to assure to the people the
promised spectacle, when the people believed it had been postponed
until the following day. All gazed at him searchingly.
But they could discern nothing but a man of middle height, dressed in
black, apparently of a certain age, for the end of a gray beard peeped
out from the bottom of the mask that hid his features.
The king’s request had undoubtedly been acceded to by an affirmative
sign, for in firm, sonorous accents, which vibrated in the depths of
Athos’s heart, the king began his speech, explaining his conduct and
counseling the welfare of the kingdom.
“Oh!” said Athos to himself, “is it indeed possible that I hear what I
hear and that I see what I see? Is it possible that God has abandoned
His representative on earth and left him to die thus miserably? And I
have not seen him! I have not said adieu to him!”
A noise was heard like that the instrument of death would make if moved
upon the block.
“Do not touch the axe,” said the king, and resumed his speech.
At the end of his speech the king looked tenderly around upon the
people. Then unfastening the diamond ornament which the queen had sent
him, he placed it in the hands of the priest who accompanied Juxon.
Then he drew from his breast a little cross set in diamonds, which,
like the order, had been the gift of Henrietta Maria.
“Sir,” said he to the priest, “I shall keep this cross in my hand till
the last moment. Take it from me when I am—dead.”
“Yes, sire,” said a voice, which Athos recognized as that of Aramis.
He then took his hat from his head and threw it on the ground. One by
one he undid the buttons of his doublet, took it off and deposited it
by the side of his hat. Then, as it was cold, he asked for his gown,
which was brought to him.
All the preparations were made with a frightful calmness. One would
have thought the king was going to bed and not to his coffin.
“Will these be in your way?” he said to the executioner, raising his
long locks; “if so, they can be tied up.”
Charles accompanied these words with a look designed to penetrate the
mask of the unknown headsman. His calm, noble gaze forced the man to
turn away his head. But after the searching look of the king he
encountered the burning eyes of Aramis.
The king, seeing that he did not reply, repeated his question.
“It will do,” replied the man, in a tremulous voice, “if you separate
them across the neck.”
The king parted his hair with his hands, and looking at the block he
said:
“This block is very low, is there no other to be had?”
“It is the usual block,” answered the man in the mask.
“Do you think you can behead me with a single blow?” asked the king.
“I hope so,” was the reply. There was something so strange in these
three words that everybody, except the king, shuddered.
“I do not wish to be taken by surprise,” added the king. “I shall kneel
down to pray; do not strike then.”
“When shall I strike?”
“When I shall lay my head on the block and say ‘_Remember!_’ then
strike boldly.”
“Gentlemen,” said the king to those around him, “I leave you to brave
the tempest; I go before you to a kingdom which knows no storms.
Farewell.”
He looked at Aramis and made a special sign to him with his head.
“Now,” he continued, “withdraw a little and let me say my prayer, I
beseech you. You, also, stand aside,” he said to the masked man. “It is
only for a moment and I know that I belong to you; but remember that
you are not to strike till I give the signal.”
Then he knelt down, made the sign of the cross, and lowering his face
to the planks, as if he would have kissed them, said in a low tone, in
French, “Comte de la Fère, are you there?”
“Yes, your majesty,” he answered, trembling.
“Faithful friend, noble heart!” said the king, “I should not have been
rescued. I have addressed my people and I have spoken to God; last of
all I speak to you. To maintain a cause which I believed sacred I have
lost the throne and my children their inheritance. A million in gold
remains; it is buried in the cellars of Newcastle Keep. You only know
that this money exists. Make use of it, then, whenever you think it
will be most useful, for my eldest son’s welfare. And now, farewell.”
“Farewell, saintly, martyred majesty,” lisped Athos, chilled with
terror.
A moment’s silence ensued and then, in a full, sonorous voice, the king
exclaimed: “_Remember!_”
He had scarcely uttered the word when a heavy blow shook the scaffold
and where Athos stood immovable a warm drop fell upon his brow. He
reeled back with a shudder and the same moment the drops became a
crimson cataract.
Athos fell on his knees and remained some minutes as if bewildered or
stunned. At last he rose and taking his handkerchief steeped it in the
blood of the martyred king. Then as the crowd gradually dispersed he
leaped down, crept from behind the drapery, glided between two horses,
mingled with the crowd and was the first to arrive at the inn.
Having gained his room he raised his hand to his face, and observing
that his fingers were covered with the monarch’s blood, fell down
insensible.
Chapter LXVII.
The Man in the Mask.
The snow was falling thick and icy. Aramis was the next to come in and
to discover Athos almost insensible. But at the first words he uttered
the comte roused himself from the kind of lethargy in which he had
sunk.
“Well,” said Aramis, “beaten by fate!”
“Beaten!” said Athos. “Noble and unhappy king!”
“Are you wounded?” cried Aramis.
“No, this is his blood.”
“Where were you, then?”
“Where you left me—under the scaffold.”
“Did you see it all?”
“No, but I heard all. God preserve me from another such hour as I have
just passed.”
“Then you know that I did not leave him?”
“I heard your voice up to the last moment.”
“Here is the order he gave me and the cross I took from his hand; he
desired they should be returned to the queen.”
“Then here is a handkerchief to wrap them in,” replied Athos, drawing
from his pocket the one he had steeped in the king’s blood.
“And what,” he continued, “has been done with the poor body?”
“By order of Cromwell royal honors will be accorded to it. The doctors
are embalming the corpse, and when it is ready it will be placed in a
lighted chapel.”
“Mockery,” muttered Athos, savagely; “royal honors to one whom they
have murdered!”
“Well, cheer up!” said a loud voice from the staircase, which Porthos
had just mounted. “We are all mortal, my poor friends.”
“You are late, my dear Porthos.”
“Yes, there were some people on the way who delayed me. The wretches
were dancing. I took one of them by the throat and three-quarters
throttled him. Just then a patrol rode up. Luckily the man I had had
most to do with was some minutes before he could speak, so I took
advantage of his silence to walk off.”
“Have you seen D’Artagnan?”
“We got separated in the crowd and I could not find him again.”
“Oh!” said Athos, satirically, “I saw him. He was in the front row of
the crowd, admirably placed for seeing; and as on the whole the sight
was curious, he probably wished to stay to the end.”
“Ah Comte de la Fère,” said a calm voice, though hoarse with running,
“is it your habit to calumniate the absent?”
This reproof stung Athos to the heart, but as the impression produced
by seeing D’Artagnan foremost in a coarse, ferocious crowd had been
very strong, he contented himself with replying:
“I am not calumniating you, my friend. They were anxious about you
here; I simply told them where you were. You didn’t know King Charles;
to you he was only a foreigner and you were not obliged to love him.”
So saying, he stretched out his hand, but the other pretended not to
see it and he let it drop again slowly by his side.
“Ugh! I am tired,” cried D’Artagnan, sitting down.
“Drink a glass of port,” said Aramis; “it will refresh you.”
“Yes, let us drink,” said Athos, anxious to make it up by hobnobbing
with D’Artagnan, “let us drink and get away from this hateful country.
The felucca is waiting for us, you know; let us leave to-night, we have
nothing more to do here.”
“You are in a hurry, sir count,” said D’Artagnan.
“But what would you have us to do here, now that the king is dead?”
“Go, sir count,” replied D’Artagnan, carelessly; “you see nothing to
keep you a little longer in England? Well, for my part, I, a
bloodthirsty ruffian, who can go and stand close to a scaffold, in
order to have a better view of the king’s execution—I remain.”
Athos turned pale. Every reproach his friend uttered struck deeply in
his heart.
“Ah! you remain in London?” said Porthos.
“Yes. And you?”
“Hang it!” said Porthos, a little perplexed between the two, “I
suppose, as I came with you, I must go away with you. I can’t leave you
alone in this abominable country.”
“Thanks, my worthy friend. So I have a little adventure to propose to
you when the count is gone. I want to find out who was the man in the
mask, who so obligingly offered to cut the king’s throat.”
“A man in a mask?” cried Athos. “You did not let the executioner
escape, then?”
“The executioner is still in the cellar, where, I presume, he has had
an interview with mine host’s bottles. But you remind me. Mousqueton!”
“Sir,” answered a voice from the depths of the earth.
“Let out your prisoner. All is over.”
“But,” said Athos, “who is the wretch that has dared to raise his hand
against his king?”
“An amateur headsman,” replied Aramis, “who however, does not handle
the axe amiss.”
“Did you not see his face?” asked Athos.
“He wore a mask.”
“But you, Aramis, who were close to him?”
“I could see nothing but a gray beard under the fringe of the mask.”
“Then it must be a man of a certain age.”
“Oh!” said D’Artagnan, “that matters little. When one puts on a mask,
it is not difficult to wear a beard under it.”
“I am sorry I did not follow him,” said Porthos.
“Well, my dear Porthos,” said D’Artagnan, “that’s the very thing it
came into my head to do.”
Athos understood all now.
“Pardon me, D’Artagnan,” he said. “I have distrusted God; I could the
more easily distrust you. Pardon me, my friend.”
“We will see about that presently,” said D’Artagnan, with a slight
smile.
“Well, then?” said Aramis.
“Well, while I was watching—not the king, as monsieur le comte thinks,
for I know what it is to see a man led to death, and though I ought to
be accustomed to the sight it always makes me ill—while I was watching
the masked executioner, the idea came to me, as I said, to find out who
he was. Now, as we are wont to complete ourselves each by all the rest
and to depend on one another for assistance, as one calls his other
hand to aid the first, I looked around instinctively to see if Porthos
was there; for I had seen you, Aramis, with the king, and you, count, I
knew would be under the scaffold, and for that reason I forgive you,”
he added, offering Athos his hand, “for you must have suffered much. I
was looking around for Porthos when I saw near me a head which had been
broken, but which, for better or worse, had been patched with plaster
and with black silk. ‘Humph!’ thought I, ‘that looks like my handiwork;
I fancy I must have mended that skull somewhere or other.’ And, in
fact, it was that unfortunate Scotchman, Parry’s brother, you know, on
whom Groslow amused himself by trying his strength. Well, this man was
making signs to another at my left, and turning around I recognized the
honest Grimaud. ‘Oh!’ said I to him. Grimaud turned round with a jerk,
recognized me, and pointed to the man in the mask. ‘Eh!’ said he, which
meant, ‘Do you see him?’ ‘_Parbleu!_’ I answered, and we perfectly
understood one another. Well, everything was finished as you know. The
mob dispersed. I made a sign to Grimaud and the Scotchman, and we all
three retired into a corner of the square. I saw the executioner return
into the king’s room, change his clothes, put on a black hat and a
large cloak and disappear. Five minutes later he came down the grand
staircase.”
“You followed him?” cried Athos.
“I should think so, but not without difficulty. Every few minutes he
turned around, and thus obliged us to conceal ourselves. I might have
gone up to him and killed him. But I am not selfish, and I thought it
might console you all a little to have a share in the matter. So we
followed him through the lowest streets in the city, and in half an
hour’s time he stopped before a little isolated house. Grimaud drew out
a pistol. ‘Eh?’ said he, showing it. I held back his arm. The man in
the mask stopped before a low door and drew out a key; but before he
placed it in the lock he turned around to see if he was being followed.
Grimaud and I got behind a tree, and the Scotchman having nowhere to
hide himself, threw himself on his face in the road. Next moment the
door opened and the man disappeared.”
“The scoundrel!” said Aramis. “While you have been returning hither he
will have escaped and we shall never find him.”
“Come, now, Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “you must be taking me for some
one else.”
“Nevertheless,” said Athos, “in your absence——”
“Well, in my absence haven’t I put in my place Grimaud and the
Scotchman? Before he had taken ten steps beyond the door I had examined
the house on all sides. At one of the doors, that by which he had
entered, I placed our Scotchman, making a sign to him to follow the man
wherever he might go, if he came out again. Then going around the house
I placed Grimaud at the other exit, and here I am. Our game is beaten
up. Now for the tally-ho.”
Athos threw himself into D’Artagnan’s arms.
“Friend,” he said, “you have been too good in pardoning me; I was
wrong, a hundred times wrong. I ought to have known you better by this
time; but we are all possessed of a malignant spirit, which bids us
doubt.”
“Humph!” said Porthos. “Don’t you think the executioner might be Master
Cromwell, who, to make sure of this affair, undertook it himself?”
“Ah! just so. Cromwell is stout and short, and this man thin and lanky,
rather tall than otherwise.”
“Some condemned soldier, perhaps,” suggested Athos, “whom they have
pardoned at the price of regicide.”
“No, no,” continued D’Artagnan, “it was not the measured step of a foot
soldier, nor was it the gait of a horseman. If I am not mistaken we
have to do with a gentleman.”
“A gentleman!” exclaimed Athos. “Impossible! It would be a dishonor to
all the nobility.”
“Fine sport, by Jove!” cried Porthos, with a laugh that shook the
windows. “Fine sport!”
“Are you still bent on departure, Athos?” asked D’Artagnan.
“No, I remain,” replied Athos, with a threatening gesture that promised
no good to whomsoever it was addressed.
“Swords, then!” cried Aramis, “swords! let us not lose a moment.”
The four friends resumed their own clothes, girded on their swords,
ordered Mousqueton and Blaisois to pay the bill and to arrange
everything for immediate departure, and wrapped in their large cloaks
left in search of their game.
The night was dark, snow was falling, the streets were silent and
deserted. D’Artagnan led the way through the intricate windings and
narrow alleys of the city and ere long they had reached the house in
question. For a moment D’Artagnan thought that Parry’s brother had
disappeared; but he was mistaken. The robust Scotchman, accustomed to
the snows of his native hills, had stretched himself against a post,
and like a fallen statue, insensible to the inclemency of the weather,
had allowed the snow to cover him. He rose, however, as they
approached.
“Come,” said Athos, “here’s another good servant. Really, honest men
are not so scarce as I thought.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to weave crowns for our Scotchman. I believe the
fellow is here on his own account, for I have heard that these
gentlemen born beyond the Tweed are very vindictive. I should not like
to be Groslow, if he meets him.”
“Well?” said Athos, to the man, in English.
“No one has come out,” he replied.
“Then, Porthos and Aramis, will you remain with this man while we go
around to Grimaud?”
Grimaud had made himself a kind of sentry box out of a hollow willow,
and as they drew near he put his head out and gave a low whistle.
“Soho!” cried Athos.
“Yes,” said Grimaud.
“Well, has anybody come out?”
“No, but somebody has gone in.”
“A man or a woman?”
“A man.”
“Ah! ah!” said D’Artagnan, “there are two of them, then!”
“I wish there were four,” said Athos; “the two parties would then be
equal.”
“Perhaps there are four,” said D’Artagnan.
“What do you mean?”
“Other men may have entered before them and waited for them.”
“We can find out,” said Grimaud. At the same time he pointed to a
window, through the shutters of which a faint light streamed.
“That is true,” said D’Artagnan, “let us call the others.”
They returned around the house to fetch Porthos and Aramis.
“Have you seen anything?” they asked.
“No, but we are going to,” replied D’Artagnan, pointing to Grimaud, who
had already climbed some five or six feet from the ground.
All four came up together. Grimaud continued to climb like a cat and
succeeded at last in catching hold of a hook, which served to keep one
of the shutters back when opened. Then resting his foot on a small
ledge he made a sign to show all was right.
“Well?” asked D’Artagnan.
Grimaud showed his closed hand, with two fingers spread out.
“Speak,” said Athos; “we cannot see your signs. How many are there?”
“Two. One opposite to me, the other with his back to me.”
“Good. And the man opposite to you is——
“The man I saw go in.”
“Do you know him?”
“I thought I recognized him, and was not mistaken. Short and stout.”
“Who is it?” they all asked together in a low tone.
“General Oliver Cromwell.”
The four friends looked at one another.
“And the other?” asked Athos.
“Thin and lanky.”
“The executioner,” said D’Artagnan and Aramis at the same time.
“I can see nothing but his back,” resumed Grimaud. “But wait. He is
moving; and if he has taken off his mask I shall be able to see. Ah——”
And as if struck in the heart he let go the hook and dropped with a
groan.
“Did you see him?” they all asked.
“Yes,” said Grimaud, with his hair standing on end.
“The thin, spare man?”
“Yes.”
“The executioner, in short?” asked Aramis.
“Yes.”
“And who is it?” said Porthos.
“He—he—is——” murmured Grimaud, pale as a ghost and seizing his master’s
hand.
“Who? He?” asked Athos.
“Mordaunt,” replied Grimaud.
D’Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis uttered a cry of joy.
Athos stepped back and passed his hand across his brow.
“Fatality!” he muttered.
Chapter LXVIII.
Cromwell’s House.
It was, in fact, Mordaunt whom D’Artagnan had followed, without knowing
it. On entering the house he had taken off his mask and imitation
beard, then, mounting a staircase, had opened a door, and in a room
lighted by a single lamp found himself face to face with a man seated
behind a desk.
This man was Cromwell.
Cromwell had two or three of these retreats in London, unknown except
to the most intimate of his friends. Mordaunt was among these.
“It is you, Mordaunt,” he said. “You are late.”
“General, I wished to see the ceremony to the end, which delayed me.”
“Ah! I scarcely thought you were so curious as that.”
“I am always curious to see the downfall of your honor’s enemies, and
_he_ was not among the least of them. But you, general, were you not at
Whitehall?”
“No,” said Cromwell.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Have you had any account of it?”
“None. I have been here since the morning. I only know that there was a
conspiracy to rescue the king.”
“Ah, you knew that?” said Mordaunt.
“It matters little. Four men, disguised as workmen, were to get the
king out of prison and take him to Greenwich, where a vessel was
waiting.”
“And knowing all that, your honor remained here, far from the city,
tranquil and inactive.”
“Tranquil, yes,” replied Cromwell. “But who told you I was inactive?”
“But—if the plot had succeeded?”
“I wished it to do so.”
“I thought your excellence considered the death of Charles I. as a
misfortune necessary to the welfare of England.”
“Yes, his death; but it would have been more seemly not upon the
scaffold.”
“Why so?” asked Mordaunt.
Cromwell smiled. “Because it could have been said that I had had him
condemned for the sake of justice and had let him escape out of pity.”
“But if he had escaped?”
“Impossible; my precautions were taken.”
“And does your honor know the four men who undertook to rescue him?”
“The four Frenchmen, of whom two were sent by the queen to her husband
and two by Mazarin to me.”
“And do you think Mazarin commissioned them to act as they have done?”
“It is possible. But he will not avow it.”
“How so?”
“Because they failed.”
“Your honor gave me two of these Frenchmen when they were only guilty
of fighting for Charles I. Now that they are guilty of a conspiracy
against England will your honor give me all four of them?”
“Take them,” said Cromwell.
Mordaunt bowed with a smile of triumphant ferocity.
“Did the people shout at all?” Cromwell asked.
“Very little, except ‘Long live Cromwell!’”
“Where were you placed?”
Mordaunt tried for a moment to read in the general’s face if this was
simply a useless question, or whether he knew everything. But his
piercing eyes could by no means penetrate the sombre depths of
Cromwell’s.
“I was so situated as to hear and see _everything_,” he answered.
It was now Cromwell’s turn to look fixedly at Mordaunt, and Mordaunt to
make himself impenetrable.
“It appears,” said Cromwell, “that this improvised executioner did his
duty remarkably well. The blow, so they tell me at least, was struck
with a master’s hand.”
Mordaunt remembered that Cromwell had told him he had had no detailed
account, and he was now quite convinced that the general had been
present at the execution, hidden behind some screen or curtain.
“In fact,” said Mordaunt, with a calm voice and immovable countenance,
“a single blow sufficed.”
“Perhaps it was some one in that occupation,” said Cromwell.
“Do you think so, sir? He did not look like an executioner.”
“And who else save an executioner would have wished to fill that
horrible office?”
“But,” said Mordaunt, “it might have been some personal enemy of the
king, who had made a vow of vengeance and accomplished it in this way.
Perhaps it was some man of rank who had grave reasons for hating the
fallen king, and who, learning that the king was about to flee and
escape him, threw himself in the way, with a mask on his face and an
axe in his hand, not as substitute for the executioner, but as an
ambassador of Fate.”
“Possibly.”
“And if that were the case would your honor condemn his action?”
“It is not for me to judge. It rests between his conscience and his
God.”
“But if your honor knew this man?”
“I neither know nor wish to know him. Provided Charles is dead, it is
the axe, not the man, we must thank.”
“And yet, without the man, the king would have been rescued.”
Cromwell smiled.
“They would have carried him to Greenwich,” he said, “and put him on
board a felucca with five barrels of powder in the hold. Once out to
sea, you are too good a politician not to understand the rest,
Mordaunt.”
“Yes, they would have all been blown up.”
“Just so. The explosion would have done what the axe had failed to do.
Men would have said that the king had escaped human justice and been
overtaken by God’s. You see now why I did not care to know your
gentleman in the mask; for really, in spite of his excellent
intentions, I could not thank him for what he has done.”
Mordaunt bowed humbly. “Sir,” he said, “you are a profound thinker and
your plan was sublime.”
“Say absurd, since it has become useless. The only sublime ideas in
politics are those which bear fruit. So to-night, Mordaunt, go to
Greenwich and ask for the captain of the felucca _Lightning_. Show him
a white handkerchief knotted at the four corners and tell the crew to
disembark and carry the powder back to the arsenal, unless, indeed——”
“Unless?” said Mordaunt, whose face was lighted by a savage joy as
Cromwell spoke:
“This skiff might be of use to you for personal projects.”
“Oh, my lord, my lord!”
“That title,” said Cromwell, laughing, “is all very well here, but take
care a word like that does not escape your lips in public.”
“But your honor will soon be called so generally.”
“I hope so, at least,” said Cromwell, rising and putting on his cloak.
“You are going, sir?”
“Yes,” said Cromwell. “I slept here last night and the night before,
and you know it is not my custom to sleep three times in the same bed.”
“Then,” said Mordaunt, “your honor gives me my liberty for to-night?”
“And even for all day to-morrow, if you want it. Since last evening,”
he added, smiling, “you have done enough in my service, and if you have
any personal matters to settle it is just that I should give you time.”
“Thank you, sir; it will be well employed, I hope.”
Cromwell turned as he was going.
“Are you armed?” he asked.
“I have my sword.”
“And no one waiting for you outside?”
“No.”
“Then you had better come with me.”
“Thank you, sir, but the way by the subterranean passage would take too
much time and I have none to lose.”
Cromwell placed his hand on a hidden handle and opened a door so well
concealed by the tapestry that the most practiced eye could not have
discovered it. It closed after him with a spring. This door
communicated with a subterranean passage, leading under the street to a
grotto in the garden of a house about a hundred yards from that of the
future Protector.
It was just before this that Grimaud had perceived the two men seated
together.
D’Artagnan was the first to recover from his surprise.
“Mordaunt,” he cried. “Ah! by Heaven! it is God Himself who sent us
here.”
“Yes,” said Porthos, “let us break the door in and fall upon him.”
“No,” replied D’Artagnan, “no noise. Now, Grimaud, you come here, climb
up to the window again and tell us if Mordaunt is alone and whether he
is preparing to go out or go to bed. If he comes out we shall catch
him. If he stays in we will break in the window. It is easier and less
noisy than the door.”
Grimaud began to scale the wall again.
“Keep guard at the other door, Athos and Aramis. Porthos and I will
stay here.”
The friends obeyed.
“He is alone,” said Grimaud.
“We did not see his companion come out.”
“He may have gone by the other door.”
“What is he doing?”
“Putting on his cloak and gloves.”
“He’s ours,” muttered D’Artagnan.
Porthos mechanically drew his dagger from the scabbard.
“Put it up again, my friend,” said D’Artagnan. “We must proceed in an
orderly manner.”
“Hush!” said Grimaud, “he is coming out. He has put out the lamp, I can
see nothing now.”
“Get down then and quickly.”
Grimaud leaped down. The snow deadened the noise of his fall.
“Now go and tell Athos and Aramis to stand on each side of the door and
clap their hands if they catch him. We will do the same.”
The next moment the door opened and Mordaunt appeared on the threshold,
face to face with D’Artagnan. Porthos clapped his hands and the other
two came running around. Mordaunt was livid, but he uttered no cry nor
called for assistance. D’Artagnan quietly pushed him in again, and by
the light of a lamp on the staircase made him ascend the steps backward
one by one, keeping his eyes all the time on Mordaunt’s hands, who,
however, knowing that it was useless, attempted no resistance. At last
they stood face to face in the very room where ten minutes before
Mordaunt had been talking to Cromwell.
Porthos came up behind, and unhooking the lamp on the staircase relit
that in the room. Athos and Aramis entered last and locked the door
behind them.
“Oblige me by taking a seat,” said D’Artagnan, pushing a chair toward
Mordaunt, who sat down, pale but calm. Aramis, Porthos and D’Artagnan
drew their chairs near him. Athos alone kept away and sat in the
furthest corner of the room, as if determined to be merely a spectator
of the proceedings. He seemed to be quite overcome. Porthos rubbed his
hands in feverish impatience. Aramis bit his lips till the blood came.
D’Artagnan alone was calm, at least in appearance.
“Monsieur Mordaunt,” he said, “since, after running after one another
so long, chance has at last brought us together, let us have a little
conversation, if you please.”
Chapter LXIX.
Conversational.
Though Mordaunt had been so completely taken by surprise and had
mounted the stairs in such utter confusion, when once seated he
recovered himself, as it were, and prepared to seize any possible
opportunity of escape. His eye wandered to a long stout sword on his
flank and he instinctively slipped it around within reach of his right
hand.
D’Artagnan was waiting for a reply to his remark and said nothing.
Aramis muttered to himself, “We shall hear nothing but the usual
commonplace things.”
Porthos sucked his mustache, muttering, “A good deal of ceremony
to-night about crushing an adder.” Athos shrunk into his corner, pale
and motionless as a _bas-relief_.
The silence, however, could not last forever. So D’Artagnan began:
“Sir,” he said, with desperate politeness, “it seems to me that you
change your costume almost as rapidly as I have seen the Italian
mummers do, whom the Cardinal Mazarin brought over from Bergamo and
whom he doubtless took you to see during your travels in France.”
Mordaunt did not reply.
“Just now,” D’Artagnan continued, “you were disguised—I mean to say,
attired—as a murderer, and now——”
“And now I look very much like a man who is going to be murdered.”
“Oh! sir,” said D’Artagnan, “how can you talk like that when you are in
the company of gentlemen and have such an excellent sword at your
side?”
“No sword is excellent enough to be of use against four swords and
daggers.”
“Well, that is scarcely the question. I had the honor of asking you why
you altered your costume. The mask and beard became you very well, and
as to the axe, I do not think it would be out of keeping even at this
moment. Why, then, have you laid it aside?”
“Because, remembering the scene at Armentières, I thought I should find
four axes for one, as I was to meet four executioners.”
“Sir,” replied D’Artagnan, in the calmest manner possible, “you are
very young; I shall therefore overlook your frivolous remarks. What
took place at Armentières has no connection whatever with the present
occasion. We could scarcely have requested your mother to take a sword
and fight us.”
“Aha! It is a duel, then?” cried Mordaunt, as if disposed to reply at
once to the provocation.
Porthos rose, always ready for this kind of adventure.
“Pardon me,” said D’Artagnan. “Do not let us do things in a hurry. We
will arrange the matter rather better. Confess, Monsieur Mordaunt, that
you are anxious to kill some of us.”
“All,” replied Mordaunt.
“Then, my dear sir; I am convinced that these gentlemen return your
kind wishes and will be delighted to kill you also. Of course they will
do so as honorable gentlemen, and the best proof I can furnish is
this——”
So saying, he threw his hat on the ground, pushed back his chair to the
wall and bowed to Mordaunt with true French grace.
“At your service, sir,” he continued. “My sword is shorter than yours,
it’s true, but, bah! I think the arm will make up for the sword.”
“Halt!” cried Porthos coming forward. “I begin, and without any
rhetoric.”
“Allow me, Porthos,” said Aramis.
Athos did not move. He might have been taken for a statue. Even his
breathing seemed to be arrested.
“Gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “you shall have your turn. Monsieur
Mordaunt dislikes you sufficiently not to refuse you afterward. You can
see it in his eye. So pray keep your places, like Athos, whose calmness
is entirely laudable. Besides, we will have no words about it. I have
particular business to settle with this gentleman and I shall and will
begin.”
Porthos and Aramis drew back, disappointed, and drawing his sword
D’Artagnan turned to his adversary:
“Sir, I am waiting for you.”
“And for my part, gentlemen, I admire you. You are disputing which
shall fight me first, but you do not consult me who am most concerned
in the matter. I hate you all, but not equally. I hope to kill all four
of you, but I am more likely to kill the first than the second, the
second than the third, and the third than the last. I claim, then, the
right to choose my opponent. If you refuse this right you may kill me,
but I shall not fight.”
“It is but fair,” said Porthos and Aramis, hoping he would choose one
of them.
Athos and D’Artagnan said nothing, but their silence seemed to imply
consent.
“Well, then,” said Mordaunt, “I choose for my adversary the man who,
not thinking himself worthy to be called Comte de la Fère, calls
himself Athos.”
Athos sprang up, but after an instant of motionless silence he said, to
the astonishment of his friends, “Monsieur Mordaunt, a duel between us
is impossible. Submit this honour to somebody else.” And he sat down.
“Ah!” said Mordaunt, with a sneer, “there’s one who is afraid.”
“Zounds!” exclaimed D’Artagnan, bounding toward him, “who says that
Athos is afraid?”
“Let him have his say, D’Artagnan,” said Athos, with a smile of sadness
and contempt.
“Is it your decision, Athos?” resumed the Gascon.
“Irrevocably.”
“You hear, sir,” said D’Artagnan, turning to Mordaunt. “The Comte de la
Fère will not do you the honor of fighting with you. Choose one of us
to replace the Comte de la Fère.”
“As long as I don’t fight with him it is the same to me with whom I
fight. Put your names into a hat and draw lots.”
“A good idea,” said D’Artagnan.
“At least that will conciliate us all,” said Aramis.
“I should never have thought of that,” said Porthos, “and yet it is
very simple.”
“Come, Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “write this for us in those neat
little characters in which you wrote to Marie Michon that the mother of
this gentleman intended to assassinate the Duke of Buckingham.”
Mordaunt sustained this new attack without wincing. He stood with his
arms folded, apparently as calm as any man could be in such
circumstances. If he had not courage he had what is very like it,
namely, pride.
Aramis went to Cromwell’s desk, tore off three bits of paper of equal
size, wrote on the first his own name and on the others those of his
two companions, and presented them open to Mordaunt, who by a movement
of his head indicated that he left the matter entirely to Aramis. He
then rolled them separately and put them in a hat, which he handed to
Mordaunt.
Mordaunt put his hand into the hat, took out one of the three papers
and disdainfully dropped it on the table without reading it.
“Ah! serpent,” muttered D’Artagnan, “I would give my chance of a
captaincy in the _mousquetaires_ for that to be my name.”
Aramis opened the paper, and in a voice trembling with hate and
vengeance read “D’Artagnan.”
The Gascon uttered a cry of joy and turning to Mordaunt:
“I hope, sir,” said he, “you have no objection to make.”
“None, whatever,” replied the other, drawing his sword and resting the
point on his boot.
The moment that D’Artagnan saw that his wish was accomplished and his
man would not escape him, he recovered his usual tranquillity. He
turned up his cuffs neatly and rubbed the sole of his right boot on the
floor, but did not fail, however, to remark that Mordaunt was looking
about him in a singular manner.
“Are you ready, sir?” he said at last.
“I was waiting for you, sir,” said Mordaunt, raising his head and
casting at his opponent a look it would be impossible to describe.
“Well, then,” said the Gascon, “take care of yourself, for I am not a
bad hand at the rapier.”
“Nor I either.”
“So much the better; that sets my mind at rest. Defend yourself.”
“One minute,” said the young man. “Give me your word, gentlemen, that
you will not attack me otherwise than one after the other.”
“Is it to have the pleasure of insulting us that you say that, my
little viper?”
“No, but to set my mind at rest, as you observed just now.”
“It is for something else than that, I imagine,” muttered D’Artagnan,
shaking his head doubtfully.
“On the honor of gentlemen,” said Aramis and Porthos.
“In that case, gentlemen, have the kindness to retire into the corners,
so as to give us ample room. We shall require it.”
“Yes, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “we must not leave this person the
slightest pretext for behaving badly, which, with all due respect, I
fancy he is anxious still to do.”
This new attack made no impression on Mordaunt. The space was cleared,
the two lamps placed on Cromwell’s desk, in order that the combatants
might have as much light as possible; and the swords crossed.
D’Artagnan was too good a swordsman to trifle with his opponent. He
made a rapid and brilliant feint which Mordaunt parried.
“Aha!” he cried with a smile of satisfaction.
And without losing a minute, thinking he saw an opening, he thrust his
right in and forced Mordaunt to parry a counter _en quarte_ so fine
that the point of the weapon might have turned within a wedding ring.
This time it was Mordaunt who smiled.
“Ah, sir,” said D’Artagnan, “you have a wicked smile. It must have been
the devil who taught it you, was it not?”
Mordaunt replied by trying his opponent’s weapon with an amount of
strength which the Gascon was astonished to find in a form apparently
so feeble; but thanks to a parry no less clever than that which
Mordaunt had just achieved, he succeeded in meeting his sword, which
slid along his own without touching his chest.
Mordaunt rapidly sprang back a step.
“Ah! you lose ground, you are turning? Well, as you please, I even gain
something by it, for I no longer see that wicked smile of yours. You
have no idea what a false look you have, particularly when you are
afraid. Look at my eyes and you will see what no looking-glass has ever
shown you—a frank and honorable countenance.”
To this flow of words, not perhaps in the best taste, but
characteristic of D’Artagnan, whose principal object was to divert his
opponent’s attention, Mordaunt did not reply, but continuing to turn
around he succeeded in changing places with D’Artagnan.
He smiled more and more sarcastically and his smile began to make the
Gascon anxious.
“Come, come,” cried D’Artagnan, “we must finish with this,” and in his
turn he pressed Mordaunt hard, who continued to lose ground, but
evidently on purpose and without letting his sword leave the line for a
moment. However, as they were fighting in a room and had not space to
go on like that forever, Mordaunt’s foot at last touched the wall,
against which he rested his left hand.
“Ah, this time you cannot lose ground, my fine friend!” exclaimed
D’Artagnan. “Gentlemen, did you ever see a scorpion pinned to a wall?
No. Well, then, you shall see it now.”
In a second D’Artagnan had made three terrible thrusts at Mordaunt, all
of which touched, but only pricked him. The three friends looked on,
panting and astonished. At last D’Artagnan, having got up too close,
stepped back to prepare a fourth thrust, but the moment when, after a
fine, quick feint, he was attacking as sharply as lightning, the wall
seemed to give way, Mordaunt disappeared through the opening, and
D’Artagnan’s blade, caught between the panels, shivered like a sword of
glass. D’Artagnan sprang back; the wall had closed again.
Mordaunt, in fact, while defending himself, had manœuvred so as to
reach the secret door by which Cromwell had left, had felt for the knob
with his left hand, pressed it and disappeared.
The Gascon uttered a furious imprecation, which was answered by a wild
laugh on the other side of the iron panel.
“Help me, gentlemen,” cried D’Artagnan, “we must break in this door.”
“It is the devil in person!” said Aramis, hastening forward.
“He escapes us,” growled Porthos, pushing his huge shoulder against the
hinges, but in vain. “‘Sblood! he escapes us.”
“So much the better,” muttered Athos.
“I thought as much,” said D’Artagnan, wasting his strength in useless
efforts. “Zounds, I thought as much when the wretch kept moving around
the room. I thought he was up to something.”
“It’s a misfortune, to which his friend, the devil, treats us,” said
Aramis.
“It’s a piece of good fortune sent from Heaven,” said Athos, evidently
much relieved.
“Really!” said D’Artagnan, abandoning the attempt to burst open the
panel after several ineffectual attempts, “Athos, I cannot imagine how
you can talk to us in that way. You cannot understand the position we
are in. In this kind of game, not to kill is to let one’s self be
killed. This fox of a fellow will be sending us a hundred iron-sided
beasts who will pick us off like sparrows in this place. Come, come, we
must be off. If we stay here five minutes more there’s an end of us.”
“Yes, you are right.”
“But where shall we go?” asked Porthos.
“To the hotel, to be sure, to get our baggage and horses; and from
there, if it please God, to France, where, at least, I understand the
architecture of the houses.”
So, suiting the action to the word, D’Artagnan thrust the remnant of
his sword into its scabbard, picked up his hat and ran down the stairs,
followed by the others.
Chapter LXX.
The Skiff “Lightning.”
D’Artagnan had judged correctly; Mordaunt felt that he had no time to
lose, and he lost none. He knew the rapidity of decision and action
that characterized his enemies and resolved to act with reference to
that. This time the musketeers had an adversary who was worthy of them.
After closing the door carefully behind him Mordaunt glided into the
subterranean passage, sheathing on the way his now useless sword, and
thus reached the neighboring house, where he paused to examine himself
and to take breath.
“Good!” he said, “nothing, almost nothing—scratches, nothing more; two
in the arm and one in the breast. The wounds that I make are better
than that—witness the executioner of Bethune, my uncle and King
Charles. Now, not a second to lose, for a second lost will perhaps save
them. They must die—die all together—killed at one stroke by the
thunder of men in default of God’s. They must disappear, broken,
scattered, annihilated. I will run, then, till my legs no longer serve,
till my heart bursts in my bosom but I will arrive before they do.”
Mordaunt proceeded at a rapid pace to the nearest cavalry barracks,
about a quarter of a league distant. He made that quarter of a league
in four or five minutes. Arrived at the barracks he made himself known,
took the best horse in the stables, mounted and gained the high road. A
quarter of an hour later he was at Greenwich.
“There is the port,” he murmured. “That dark point yonder is the Isle
of Dogs. Good! I am half an hour in advance of them, an hour, perhaps.
Fool that I was! I have almost killed myself by my needless haste.
Now,” he added, rising in the stirrups and looking about him, “which, I
wonder, is the _Lightning?_”
At this moment, as if in reply to his words, a man lying on a coil of
cables rose and advanced a few steps toward him. Mordaunt drew a
handkerchief from his pocket, and tying a knot at each corner—the
signal agreed upon—waved it in the air and the man came up to him. He
was wrapped in a large rough cape, which concealed his form and partly
his face.
“Do you wish to go on the water, sir?” said the sailor.
“Yes, just so. Along the Isle of Dogs.”
“And perhaps you have a preference for one boat more than another. You
would like one that sails as rapidly as——”
“Lightning,” interrupted Mordaunt.
“Then mine is the boat you want, sir. I’m your man.”
“I begin to think so, particularly if you have not forgotten a certain
signal.”
“Here it is, sir,” and the sailor took from his coat a handkerchief,
tied at each corner.
“Good, quite right!” cried Mordaunt, springing off his horse. “There’s
not a moment to lose; now take my horse to the nearest inn and conduct
me to your vessel.”
“But,” asked the sailor, “where are your companions? I thought there
were four of you.”
“Listen to me, sir. I’m not the man you take me for; you are in Captain
Rogers’s post, are you not? under orders from General Cromwell. Mine,
also, are from him!”
“Indeed, sir, I recognize you; you are Captain Mordaunt.”
Mordaunt was startled.
“Oh, fear nothing,” said the skipper, showing his face. “I am a
friend.”
“Captain Groslow!” cried Mordaunt.
“Himself. The general remembered that I had formerly been a naval
officer and he gave me the command of this expedition. Is there
anything new in the wind?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought, perhaps, that the king’s death——”
“Has only hastened their flight; in ten minutes they will perhaps be
here.”
“What have you come for, then?”
“To embark with you.”
“Ah! ah! the general doubted my fidelity?”
“No, but I wish to have a share in my revenge. Haven’t you some one who
will relieve me of my horse?”
Groslow whistled and a sailor appeared.
“Patrick,” said Groslow, “take this horse to the stables of the nearest
inn. If any one asks you whose it is you can say that it belongs to an
Irish gentleman.”
The sailor departed without reply.
“Now,” said Mordaunt, “are you not afraid that they will recognize
you?”
“There is no danger, dressed as I am in this pilot coat, on a night as
dark as this. Besides even you didn’t recognize me; they will be much
less likely to.”
“That is true,” said Mordaunt, “and they will be far from thinking of
you. Everything is ready, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“The cargo on board?”
“Yes.”
“Five full casks?”
“And fifty empty ones.”
“Good.”
“We are carrying port wine to Anvers.”
“Excellent. Now take me aboard and return to your post, for they will
soon be here.”
“I am ready.”
“It is important that none of your crew should see me.”
“I have but one man on board, and I am as sure of him as I am of
myself. Besides, he doesn’t know you; like his mates he is ready to
obey our orders knowing nothing of our plan.”
“Very well; let us go.”
They then went down to the Thames. A boat was fastened to the shore by
a chain fixed to a stake. Groslow jumped in, followed by Mordaunt, and
in five minutes they were quite away from that world of houses which
then crowded the outskirts of London; and Mordaunt could discern the
little vessel riding at anchor near the Isle of Dogs. When they reached
the side of this felucca, Mordaunt, dexterous in his eagerness for
vengeance, seized a rope and climbed up the side of the vessel with a
coolness and agility very rare among landsmen. He went with Groslow to
the captain’s berth, a sort of temporary cabin of planks, for the chief
apartment had been given up by Captain Rogers to the passengers, who
were to be accommodated at the other end of the boat.
“They will have nothing to do, then at this end?” said Mordaunt.
“Nothing at all.”
“That’s a capital arrangement. Return to Greenwich and bring them here.
I shall hide myself in your cabin. You have a longboat?”
“That in which we came.”
“It appeared light and well constructed.”
“Quite a canoe.”
“Fasten it to the poop with a rope; put the oars into it, so that it
may follow in the track and there will be nothing to do except to cut
the cord. Put a good supply of rum and biscuit in it for the seamen;
should the night happen to be stormy they will not be sorry to find
something to console themselves with.”
“Consider all this done. Do you wish to see the powder-room?”
“No. When you return I will set the fuse myself, but be careful to
conceal your face, so that you cannot be recognized by them.”
“Never fear.”
“There’s ten o’clock striking at Greenwich.”
Groslow, then, having given the sailor on duty an order to be on the
watch with more than usual vigilance, went down into the longboat and
soon reached Greenwich. The wind was chilly and the jetty was deserted,
as he approached it; but he had no sooner landed than he heard a noise
of horses galloping upon the paved road.
These horsemen were our friends, or rather, an avant garde, composed of
D’Artagnan and Athos. As soon as they arrived at the spot where Groslow
stood they stopped, as if guessing that he was the man they wanted.
Athos alighted and calmly opened the handkerchief tied at each corner,
whilst D’Artagnan, ever cautious, remained on horseback, one hand upon
his pistol, leaning forward watchfully.
On seeing the appointed signal, Groslow, who had at first crept behind
one of the cannons planted on that spot, walked straight up to the
gentlemen. He was so well wrapped up in his cloak that it would have
been impossible to see his face even if the night had not been so dark
as to render precaution superfluous; nevertheless, the keen glance of
Athos perceived at once it was not Rogers who stood before them.
“What do you want with us?” he asked of Groslow.
“I wish to inform you, my lord,” replied Groslow, with an Irish accent,
feigned of course, “that if you are looking for Captain Rogers you will
not find him. He fell down this morning and broke his leg. But I’m his
cousin; he told me everything and desired me to watch instead of him,
and in his place to conduct, wherever they wished to go, the gentlemen
who should bring me a handkerchief tied at each corner, like that one
which you hold and one which I have in my pocket.”
And he drew out the handkerchief.
“Was that all he said?” inquired Athos.
“No, my lord; he said you had engaged to pay seventy pounds if I landed
you safe and sound at Boulogne or any other port you choose in France.”
“What do you think of all this?” said Athos, in a low tone to
D’Artagnan, after explaining to him in French what the sailor had said
in English.
“It seems a likely story to _me_.”
“And to me, too.”
“Besides, we can but blow out his brains if he proves false,” said the
Gascon; “and you, Athos, you know something of everything and can be
our captain. I dare say you know how to navigate, should he fail us.”
“My dear friend, you guess well. My father meant me for the navy and I
have some vague notions about navigation.”
“You see!” cried D’Artagnan.
They then summoned their friends, who, with Blaisois, Mousqueton and
Grimaud, promptly joined them, leaving Parry behind them, who was to
take back to London the horses of the gentlemen and of their lackeys,
which had been sold to the host in settlement of their account with
him. Thanks to this stroke of business the four friends were able to
take away with them a sum of money which, if not large, was sufficient
as a provision against delays and accidents.
Parry parted from his friends regretfully; they had proposed his going
with them to France, but he had straightway declined.
“It is very simple,” Mousqueton had said; “he is thinking of Groslow.”
It was Captain Groslow, the reader will remember, who had broken
Parry’s head.
D’Artagnan resumed immediately the attitude of distrust that was
habitual with him. He found the wharf too completely deserted, the
night too dark, the captain too accommodating. He had reported to
Aramis what had taken place, and Aramis, not less distrustful than he,
had increased his suspicions. A slight click of the tongue against his
teeth informed Athos of the Gascon’s uneasiness.
“We have no time now for suspicions,” said Athos. “The boat is waiting
for us; come.”
“Besides,” said Aramis, “what prevents our being distrustful and going
aboard at the same time? We can watch the skipper.”
“And if he doesn’t go straight I will crush him, that’s all.”
“Well said, Porthos,” replied D’Artagnan. “Let us go, then. You first,
Mousqueton,” and he stopped his friends, directing the valets to go
first, in order to test the plank leading from the pier to the boat.
The three valets passed without accident. Athos followed them, then
Porthos, then Aramis. D’Artagnan went last, still shaking his head.
“What in the devil is the matter with you, my friend?” said Porthos.
“Upon my word you would make Cæsar afraid.”
“The matter is,” replied D’Artagnan, “that I can see upon this pier
neither inspector nor sentinel nor exciseman.”
“And you complain of that!” said Porthos. “Everything goes as if in
flowery paths.”
“Everything goes too well, Porthos. But no matter; we must trust in
God.”
As soon as the plank was withdrawn the captain took his place at the
tiller and made a sign to one of the sailors, who, boat-hook in hand,
began to push out from the labyrinth of boats in which they were
involved. The other sailor had already seated himself on the port side
and was ready to row. As soon as there was room for rowing, his
companion rejoined him and the boat began to move more rapidly.
“At last we are off!” exclaimed Porthos.
“Alas,” said Athos, “we depart alone.”
“Yes; but all four together and without a scratch; which is a
consolation.”
“We are not yet at our destination,” observed the prudent D’Artagnan;
“beware of misadventure.”
“Ah, my friend!” cried Porthos, “like the crows, you always bring bad
omens. Who could intercept us on such a night as this, pitch dark, when
one does not see more than twenty yards before one?”
“Yes, but to-morrow morning——”
“To-morrow we shall be at Boulogne.”
“I hope so, with all my heart,” said the Gascon, “and I confess my
weakness. Yes, Athos, you may laugh, but as long as we were within
gunshot of the pier or of the vessels lying by it I was looking for a
frightful discharge of musketry which would crush us.”
“But,” said Porthos, with great wisdom, “that was impossible, for they
would have killed the captain and the sailors.”
“Bah! much Monsieur Mordaunt would care. You don’t imagine he would
consider a little thing like that?”
“At any rate,” said Porthos, “I am glad to hear D’Artagnan admit that
he is afraid.”
“I not only confess it, but am proud of it,” returned the Gascon; “I’m
not such a rhinoceros as you are. Oho! what’s that?”
“The _Lightning_,” answered the captain, “our felucca.”
“So far, so good,” laughed Athos.
They went on board and the captain instantly conducted them to the
berth prepared for them—a cabin which was to serve for all purposes and
for the whole party; he then tried to slip away under pretext of giving
orders to some one.
“Stop a moment,” cried D’Artagnan; “pray how many men have you on
board, captain?”
“I don’t understand,” was the reply.
“Explain it, Athos.”
Groslow, on the question being interpreted, answered, “Three, without
counting myself.”
D’Artagnan understood, for while replying the captain had raised three
fingers. “Oh!” he exclaimed, “I begin to be more at my ease, however,
whilst you settle yourselves, I shall make the round of the boat.”
“As for me,” said Porthos, “I will see to the supper.”
“A very good idea, Porthos,” said the Gascon. “Athos lend me Grimaud,
who in the society of his friend Parry has perhaps picked up a little
English, and can act as my interpreter.”
“Go, Grimaud,” said Athos.
D’Artagnan, finding a lantern on the deck, took it up and with a pistol
in his hand he said to the captain, in English, “Come,” (being, with
the classic English oath, the only English words he knew), and so
saying he descended to the lower deck.
This was divided into three compartments—one which was covered by the
floor of that room in which Athos, Porthos and Aramis were to pass the
night; the second was to serve as the sleeping-room for the servants,
the third, under the prow of the ship, was under the temporary cabin in
which Mordaunt was concealed.
“Oho!” cried D’Artagnan, as he went down the steps of the hatchway,
preceded by the lantern, “what a number of barrels! one would think one
was in the cave of Ali Baba. What is there in them?” he added, putting
his lantern on one of the casks.
The captain seemed inclined to go upon deck again, but controlling
himself he answered:
“Port wine.”
“Ah! port wine! ’tis a comfort,” said the Gascon, “since we shall not
die of thirst. Are they all full?”
Grimaud translated the question, and Groslow, who was wiping the
perspiration from off his forehead, answered:
“Some full, others empty.”
D’Artagnan struck the barrels with his hand, and having ascertained
that he spoke the truth, pushed his lantern, greatly to the captain’s
alarm, into the interstices between the barrels, and finding that there
was nothing concealed in them:
“Come along,” he said; and he went toward the door of the second
compartment.
“Stop!” said the Englishman, “I have the key of that door;” and he
opened the door, with a trembling hand, into the second compartment,
where Mousqueton and Blaisois were preparing supper.
Here there was evidently nothing to seek or to apprehend and they
passed rapidly to examine the third compartment.
This was the room appropriated to the sailors. Two or three hammocks
hung upon the ceiling, a table and two benches composed the entire
furniture. D’Artagnan picked up two or three old sails hung on the
walls, and meeting nothing to suspect, regained by the hatchway the
deck of the vessel.
“And this room?” he asked, pointing to the captain’s cabin.
“That’s my room,” replied Groslow.
“Open the door.”
The captain obeyed. D’Artagnan stretched out his arm in which he held
the lantern, put his head in at the half opened door, and seeing that
the cabin was nothing better than a shed:
“Good,” he said. “If there is an army on board it is not here that it
is hidden. Let us see what Porthos has found for supper.” And thanking
the captain, he regained the state cabin, where his friends were.
Porthos had found nothing, and with him fatigue had prevailed over
hunger. He had fallen asleep and was in a profound slumber when
D’Artagnan returned. Athos and Aramis were beginning to close their
eyes, which they half opened when their companion came in again.
“Well!” said Aramis.
“All is well; we may sleep tranquilly.”
On this assurance the two friends fell asleep; and D’Artagnan, who was
very weary, bade good-night to Grimaud and laid himself down in his
cloak, with naked sword at his side, in such a manner that his body
barricaded the passage, and it should be impossible to enter the room
without upsetting him.
Chapter LXXI.
Port Wine.
In ten minutes the masters slept; not so the servants—-hungry, and more
thirsty than hungry.
Blaisois and Mousqueton set themselves to preparing their bed which
consisted of a plank and a valise. On a hanging table, which swung to
and fro with the rolling of the vessel, were a pot of beer and three
glasses.
“This cursed rolling!” said Blaisois. “I know it will serve me as it
did when we came over.”
“And to think,” said Mousqueton, “that we have nothing to fight
seasickness with but barley bread and hop beer. Pah!”
“But where is your wicker flask, Monsieur Mousqueton? Have you lost
it?” asked Blaisois.
“No,” replied Mousqueton, “Parry kept it. Those devilish Scotchmen are
always thirsty. And you, Grimaud,” he said to his companion, who had
just come in after his round with D’Artagnan, “are you thirsty?”
“As thirsty as a Scotchman!” was Grimaud’s laconic reply.
And he sat down and began to cast up the accounts of his party, whose
money he managed.
“Oh, lackadaisy! I’m beginning to feel queer!” cried Blaisois.
“If that’s the case,” said Mousqueton, with a learned air, “take some
nourishment.”
“Do you call that nourishment?” said Blaisois, pointing to the barley
bread and pot of beer upon the table.
“Blaisois,” replied Mousqueton, “remember that bread is the true
nourishment of a Frenchman, who is not always able to get bread, ask
Grimaud.”
“Yes, but beer?” asked Blaisois sharply, “is that their true drink?”
“As to that,” answered Mousqueton, puzzled how to get out of the
difficulty, “I must confess that to me beer is as disagreeable as wine
is to the English.”
“What! Monsieur Mousqueton! The English—do they dislike wine?”
“They hate it.”
“But I have seen them drink it.”
“As a punishment. For example, an English prince died one day because
they had put him into a butt of Malmsey. I heard the Chevalier
d’Herblay say so.”
“The fool!” cried Blaisois, “I wish I had been in his place.”
“Thou canst be,” said Grimaud, writing down his figures.
“How?” asked Blaisois, “I can? Explain yourself.”
Grimaud went on with his sum and cast up the whole.
“Port,” he said, extending his hand in the direction of the first
compartment examined by D’Artagnan and himself.
“Eh? eh? ah? Those barrels I saw through the door?”
“Port!” replied Grimaud, beginning a fresh sum.
“I have heard,” said Blaisois, “that port is a very good wine.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed Mousqueton, smacking his lips. “Excellent; there
is port wine in the cellar of Monsieur le Baron de Bracieux.”
“Suppose we ask these Englishmen to sell us a bottle,” said the honest
Blaisois.
“Sell!” cried Mousqueton, about whom there was a remnant of his ancient
marauding character left. “One may well perceive, young man, that you
are inexperienced. Why buy what one can take?”
“Take!” said Blaisois; “covet the goods of your neighbor? That is
forbidden, it seems to me.”
“Where forbidden?” asked Mousqueton.
“In the commandments of God, or of the church, I don’t know which. I
only know it says, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods, nor yet
his wife.’”
“That is a child’s reason, Monsieur Blaisois,” said Mousqueton in his
most patronizing manner. “Yes, you talk like a child—I repeat the word.
Where have you read in the Scriptures, I ask you, that the English are
your neighbors?”
“Where, that is true,” said Blaisois; “at least, I can’t now recall
it.”
“A child’s reason—I repeat it,” continued Mousqueton. “If you had been
ten years engaged in war, as Grimaud and I have been, my dear Blaisois,
you would know the difference there is between the goods of others and
the goods of enemies. Now an Englishman is an enemy; this port wine
belongs to the English, therefore it belongs to us.”
“And our masters?” asked Blaisois, stupefied by this harangue,
delivered with an air of profound sagacity, “will they be of your
opinion?”
Mousqueton smiled disdainfully.
“I suppose that you think it necessary that I should disturb the repose
of these illustrious lords to say, ‘Gentlemen, your servant,
Mousqueton, is thirsty.’ What does Monsieur Bracieux care, think you,
whether I am thirsty or not?”
“’Tis a very expensive wine,” said Blaisois, shaking his head.
“Were it liquid gold, Monsieur Blaisois, our masters would not deny
themselves this wine. Know that Monsieur de Bracieux is rich enough to
drink a tun of port wine, even if obliged to pay a pistole for every
drop.” His manner became more and more lofty every instant; then he
arose and after finishing off the beer at one draught he advanced
majestically to the door of the compartment where the wine was. “Ah!
locked!” he exclaimed; “these devils of English, how suspicious they
are!”
“Locked!” said Blaisois; “ah! the deuce it is; unlucky, for my stomach
is getting more and more upset.”
“Locked!” repeated Mousqueton.
“But,” Blaisois ventured to say, “I have heard you relate, Monsieur
Mousqueton, that once on a time, at Chantilly, you fed your master and
yourself by taking partridges in a snare, carp with a line, and bottles
with a slipnoose.”
“Perfectly true; but there was an airhole in the cellar and the wine
was in bottles. I cannot throw the loop through this partition nor move
with a pack-thread a cask of wine which may perhaps weigh two hundred
pounds.”
“No, but you can take out two or three boards of the partition,”
answered Blaisois, “and make a hole in the cask with a gimlet.”
Mousqueton opened his great round eyes to the utmost, astonished to
find in Blaisois qualities for which he did not give him credit.
“’Tis true,” he said; “but where can I get a chisel to take the planks
out, a gimlet to pierce the cask?”
“Trousers,” said Grimaud, still squaring his accounts.
“Ah, yes!” said Mousqueton.
Grimaud, in fact, was not only the accountant, but the armorer of the
party; and as he was a man full of forethought, these trousers,
carefully rolled up in his valise, contained every sort of tool for
immediate use.
Mousqueton, therefore, was soon provided with tools and he began his
task. In a few minutes he had extracted three boards. He tried to pass
his body through the aperture, but not being like the frog in the
fable, who thought he was larger than he really was, he found he must
take out three or four more before he could get through.
He sighed and set to work again.
Grimaud had now finished his accounts. He arose and stood near
Mousqueton.
“I,” he said.
“What?” said Mousqueton.
“I can pass.”
“That is true,” said Mousqueton, glancing at his friend’s long and thin
body, “you will pass easily.”
“And he knows the full casks,” said Blaisois, “for he has already been
in the hold with Monsieur le Chevalier d’Artagnan. Let Monsieur Grimaud
go in, Monsieur Mouston.”
“I could go in as well as Grimaud,” said Mousqueton, a little piqued.
“Yes, but that would take too much time and I am thirsty. I am getting
more and more seasick.”
“Go in, then, Grimaud,” said Mousqueton, handing him the beer pot and
gimlet.
“Rinse the glasses,” said Grimaud. Then with a friendly gesture toward
Mousqueton, that he might forgive him for finishing an enterprise so
brilliantly begun by another, he glided like a serpent through the
opening and disappeared.
Blaisois was in a state of great excitement; he was in ecstasies. Of
all the exploits performed since their arrival in England by the
extraordinary men with whom he had the honor to be associated, this
seemed without question to be the most wonderful.
“You are about to see,” said Mousqueton, looking at Blaisois with an
expression of superiority which the latter did not even think of
questioning, “you are about to see, Blaisois, how we old soldiers drink
when we are thirsty.”
“My cloak,” said Grimaud, from the bottom of the hold.
“What do you want?” asked Blaisois.
“My cloak—stop up the aperture with it.”
“Why?” asked Blaisois.
“Simpleton!” exclaimed Mousqueton; “suppose any one came into the
room.”
“Ah, true,” cried Blaisois, with evident admiration; “but it will be
dark in the cellar.”
“Grimaud always sees, dark or light, night as well as day,” answered
Mousqueton.
“That is lucky,” said Blaisois. “As for me, when I have no candle I
can’t take two steps without knocking against something.”
“That’s because you haven’t served,” said Mousqueton. “Had you been in
the army you would have been able to pick up a needle on the floor of a
closed oven. But hark! I think some one is coming.”
Mousqueton made, with a low whistling sound, the sign of alarm well
known to the lackeys in the days of their youth, resumed his place at
the table and made a sign to Blaisois to follow his example.
Blaisois obeyed.
The door of their cabin was opened. Two men, wrapped in their cloaks,
appeared.
“Oho!” said they, “not in bed at a quarter past eleven. That’s against
all rules. In a quarter of an hour let every one be in bed and
snoring.”
These two men then went toward the compartment in which Grimaud was
secreted; opened the door, entered and shut it after them.
“Ah!” cried Blaisois, “he is lost!”
“Grimaud’s a cunning fellow,” murmured Mousqueton.
They waited for ten minutes, during which time no noise was heard that
might indicate that Grimaud was discovered, and at the expiration of
that anxious interval the two men returned, closed the door after them,
and repeating their orders that the servants should go to bed and
extinguish their lights, disappeared.
“Shall we obey?” asked Blaisois. “All this looks suspicious.”
“They said a quarter of an hour. We still have five minutes,” replied
Mousqueton.
“Suppose we warn the masters.”
“Let’s wait for Grimaud.”
“But perhaps they have killed him.”
“Grimaud would have cried out.”
“You know he is almost dumb.”
“We should have heard the blow, then.”
“But if he doesn’t return?”
“Here he is.”
At that very moment Grimaud drew back the cloak which hid the aperture
and came in with his face livid, his eyes staring wide open with
terror, so that the pupils were contracted almost to nothing, with a
large circle of white around them. He held in his hand a tankard full
of a dark substance, and approaching the gleam of light shed by the
lamp he uttered this single monosyllable: “Oh!” with such an expression
of extreme terror that Mousqueton started, alarmed, and Blaisois was
near fainting from fright.
Both, however, cast an inquisitive glance into the tankard—it was full
of gunpowder.
Convinced that the ship was full of powder instead of having a cargo of
wine, Grimaud hastened to awake D’Artagnan, who had no sooner beheld
him than he perceived that something extraordinary had taken place.
Imposing silence, Grimaud put out the little night lamp, then knelt
down and poured into the lieutenant’s ear a recital melodramatic enough
not to require play of feature to give it pith.
This was the gist of his strange story:
The first barrel that Grimaud had found on passing into the compartment
he struck—it was empty. He passed on to another—it, also, was empty,
but the third which he tried was, from the dull sound it gave out,
evidently full. At this point Grimaud stopped and was preparing to make
a hole with his gimlet, when he found a spigot; he therefore placed his
tankard under it and turned the spout; something, whatever it was the
cask contained, fell silently into the tankard.
Whilst he was thinking that he should first taste the liquor which the
tankard contained before taking it to his companions, the door of the
cellar opened and a man with a lantern in his hands and enveloped in a
cloak, came and stood just before the hogshead, behind which Grimaud,
on hearing him come in, instantly crept. This was Groslow. He was
accompanied by another man, who carried in his hand something long and
flexible rolled up, resembling a washing line. His face was hidden
under the wide brim of his hat. Grimaud, thinking that they had come,
as he had, to try the port wine, effaced himself behind his cask and
consoled himself with the reflection that if he were discovered the
crime was not a great one.
“Have you the wick?” asked the one who carried the lantern.
“Here it is,” answered the other.
At the voice of this last speaker, Grimaud started and felt a shudder
creeping through his very marrow. He rose gently, so that his head was
just above the round of the barrel, and under the large hat he
recognized the pale face of Mordaunt.
“How long will this fuse burn?” asked this person.
“About five minutes,” replied the captain.
That voice also was known to Grimaud. He looked from one to the other
and after Mordaunt he recognized Groslow.
“Then tell the men to be in readiness—don’t tell them why now. When the
clock strikes a quarter after midnight collect your men. Get down into
the longboat.”
“That is, when I have lighted the match?”
“I will undertake that. I wish to be sure of my revenge. Are the oars
in the boat?”
“Everything is ready.”
“’Tis well.”
Mordaunt knelt down and fastened one end of the train to the spigot, in
order that he might have nothing to do but to set it on fire at the
opposite end with the match.
He then arose.
“You hear me—at a quarter past midnight—in fact, in twenty minutes.”
“I understand all perfectly, sir,” replied Groslow; “but allow me to
say there is great danger in what you undertake; would it not be better
to intrust one of the men to set fire to the train?”
“My dear Groslow,” answered Mordaunt, “you know the French proverb,
‘Nothing one does not do one’s self is ever well done.’ I shall abide
by that rule.”
Grimaud had heard all this, if he had not understood it. But what he
saw made good what he lacked in perfect comprehension of the language.
He had seen the two mortal enemies of the musketeers, had seen Mordaunt
adjust the fuse; he had heard the proverb, which Mordaunt had given in
French. Then he felt and felt again the contents of the tankard he held
in his hand; and, instead of the lively liquor expected by Blaisois and
Mousqueton, he found beneath his fingers the grains of some coarse
powder.
Mordaunt went away with the captain. At the door he stopped to listen.
“Do you hear how they sleep?” he asked.
In fact, Porthos could be heard snoring through the partition.
“’Tis God who gives them into our hands,” answered Groslow.
“This time the devil himself shall not save them,” rejoined Mordaunt.
And they went out together.
Chapter LXXII.
End of the Port Wine Mystery.
Grimaud waited till he heard the bolt grind in the lock and when he was
satisfied that he was alone he slowly rose from his recumbent posture.
“Ah!” he said, wiping with his sleeve large drops of sweat from his
forehead, “how lucky it was that Mousqueton was thirsty!”
He made haste to pass out by the opening, still thinking himself in a
dream; but the sight of the gunpowder in the tankard proved to him that
his dream was a fatal nightmare.
It may be imagined that D’Artagnan listened to these details with
increasing interest; before Grimaud had finished he rose without noise
and putting his mouth to Aramis’s ear, and at the same time touching
him on the shoulder to prevent a sudden movement:
“Chevalier,” he said, “get up and don’t make the least noise.”
Aramis awoke. D’Artagnan, pressing his hand, repeated his call. Aramis
obeyed.
“Athos is near you,” said D’Artagnan; “warn him as I have warned you.”
Aramis easily aroused Athos, whose sleep was light, like that of all
persons of a finely organized constitution. But there was more
difficulty in arousing Porthos. He was beginning to ask full
explanation of that breaking in on his sleep, which was very annoying
to him, when D’Artagnan, instead of explaining, closed his mouth with
his hand.
Then our Gascon, extending his arms, drew to him the heads of his three
friends till they almost touched one another.
“Friends,” he said, “we must leave this craft at once or we are dead
men.”
“Bah!” said Athos, “are you still afraid?”
“Do you know who is captain of this vessel?”
“No.”
“Captain Groslow.”
The shudder of the three musketeers showed to D’Artagnan that his words
began to make some impression on them.
“Groslow!” said Aramis; “the devil!
“Who is this Groslow?” asked Porthos. “I don’t remember him.”
“Groslow is the man who broke Parry’s head and is now getting ready to
break ours.”
“Oh! oh!”
“And do you know who is his lieutenant?”
“His lieutenant? There is none,” said Athos. “They don’t have
lieutenants in a felucca manned by a crew of four.”
“Yes, but Monsieur Groslow is not a captain of the ordinary kind; he
has a lieutenant, and that lieutenant is Monsieur Mordaunt.”
This time the musketeers did more than shudder—they almost cried out.
Those invincible men were subject to a mysterious and fatal influence
which that name had over them; the mere sound of it filled them with
terror.
“What shall we do?” said Athos.
“We must seize the felucca,” said Aramis.
“And kill him,” said Porthos.
“The felucca is mined,” said D’Artagnan. “Those casks which I took for
casks of port wine are filled with powder. When Mordaunt finds himself
discovered he will destroy all, friends and foes; and on my word he
would be bad company in going either to Heaven or to hell.”
“You have some plan, then?” asked Athos.
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Have you confidence in me?”
“Give your orders,” said the three musketeers.
“Very well; come this way.”
D’Artagnan went toward a very small, low window, just large enough to
let a man through. He turned it gently on its hinges.
“There,” he said, “is our road.”
“The deuce! it is a very cold one, my dear friend,” said Aramis.
“Stay here, if you like, but I warn you ’twill be rather too warm
presently.”
“But we cannot swim to the shore.”
“The longboat is yonder, lashed to the felucca. We will take possession
of it and cut the cable. Come, my friends.”
“A moment’s delay,” said Athos; “our servants?”
“Here we are!” they cried.
Meantime the three friends were standing motionless before the awful
sight which D’Artagnan, in raising the shutters, had disclosed to them
through the narrow opening of the window.
Those who have once beheld such a spectacle know that there is nothing
more solemn, more striking, than the raging sea, rolling, with its
deafening roar, its dark billows beneath the pale light of a wintry
moon.
“Gracious Heaven, we are hesitating!” cried D’Artagnan; “if we hesitate
what will the servants do?”
“I do not hesitate, you know,” said Grimaud.
“Sir,” interposed Blaisois, “I warn you that I can only swim in
rivers.”
“And I not at all,” said Mousqueton.
But D’Artagnan had now slipped through the window.
“You have decided, friend?” said Athos.
“Yes,” the Gascon answered; “Athos! you, who are a perfect being, bid
spirit triumph over body. Do you, Aramis, order the servants. Porthos,
kill every one who stands in your way.”
And after pressing the hand of Athos, D’Artagnan chose a moment when
the ship rolled backward, so that he had only to plunge into the water,
which was already up to his waist.
Athos followed him before the felucca rose again on the waves; the
cable which tied the boat to the vessel was then seen plainly rising
out of the sea.
D’Artagnan swam to it and held it, suspending himself by this rope, his
head alone out of water.
In one second Athos joined him.
Then they saw, as the felucca turned, two other heads peeping, those of
Aramis and Grimaud.
“I am uneasy about Blaisois,” said Athos; “he can, he says, only swim
in rivers.”
“When people can swim at all they can swim anywhere. To the boat! to
the boat!”
“But Porthos, I do not see him.”
“Porthos is coming—he swims like Leviathan.”
In fact, Porthos did not appear; for a scene, half tragedy and half
comedy, had been performed by him with Mousqueton and Blaisois, who,
frightened by the noise of the sea, by the whistling of the wind, by
the sight of that dark water yawning like a gulf beneath them, shrank
back instead of going forward.
“Come, come!” said Porthos; “jump in.”
“But, monsieur,” said Mousqueton, “I can’t swim; let me stay here.”
“And me, too, monsieur,” said Blaisois.
“I assure you, I shall be very much in the way in that little boat,”
said Mousqueton.
“And I know I shall drown before reaching it,” continued Blaisois.
“Come along! I shall strangle you both if you don’t get out,” said
Porthos at last, seizing Mousqueton by the throat. “Forward, Blaisois!”
A groan, stifled by the grasp of Porthos, was all the reply of poor
Blaisois, for the giant, taking him neck and heels, plunged him into
the water headforemost, pushing him out of the window as if he had been
a plank.
“Now, Mousqueton,” he said, “I hope you don’t mean to desert your
master?”
“Ah, sir,” replied Mousqueton, his eyes filling with tears, “why did
you re-enter the army? We were all so happy in the Château de
Pierrefonds!”
And without any other complaint, passive and obedient, either from true
devotion to his master or from the example set by Blaisois, Mousqueton
leaped into the sea headforemost. A sublime action, at all events, for
Mousqueton looked upon himself as dead. But Porthos was not a man to
abandon an old servant, and when Mousqueton rose above the water, blind
as a new-born puppy, he found he was supported by the large hand of
Porthos and that he was thus enabled, without having occasion even to
move, to advance toward the cable with the dignity of a very triton.
In a few minutes Porthos had rejoined his companions, who were already
in the boat; but when, after they had all got in, it came to his turn,
there was great danger that in putting his huge leg over the edge of
the boat he would upset the little vessel. Athos was the last to enter.
“Are you all here?” he asked.
“Ah! have you your sword, Athos?” cried D’Artagnan.
“Yes.”
“Cut the cable, then.”
Athos drew a sharp poniard from his belt and cut the cord. The felucca
went on, the boat continued stationary, rocked only by the swashing
waves.
“Come, Athos!” said D’Artagnan, giving his hand to the count; “you are
going to see something curious,” added the Gascon.
Chapter LXIII.
Fatality.
Scarcely had D’Artagnan uttered these words when a ringing and sudden
noise was heard resounding through the felucca, which had now become
dim in the obscurity of the night.
“That, you may be sure,” said the Gascon, “means something.”
They then at the same instant perceived a large lantern carried on a
pole appear on the deck, defining the forms of shadows behind it.
Suddenly a terrible cry, a cry of despair, was wafted through space;
and as if the shrieks of anguish had driven away the clouds, the veil
which hid the moon was cleated away and the gray sails and dark shrouds
of the felucca were plainly visible beneath the silvery light.
Shadows ran, as if bewildered, to and fro on the vessel, and mournful
cries accompanied these delirious walkers. In the midst of these
screams they saw Mordaunt upon the poop with a torch in hand.
The agitated figures, apparently wild with terror, consisted of
Groslow, who at the hour fixed by Mordaunt had collected his men and
the sailors. Mordaunt, after having listened at the door of the cabin
to hear if the musketeers were still asleep, had gone down into the
cellar, convinced by their silence that they were all in a deep
slumber. Then he had run to the train, impetuous as a man who is
excited by revenge, and full of confidence, as are those whom God
blinds, he had set fire to the wick of nitre.
All this while Groslow and his men were assembled on deck.
“Haul up the cable and draw the boat to us,” said Groslow.
One of the sailors got down the side of the ship, seized the cable, and
drew it; it came without the least resistance.
“The cable is cut!” he cried, “no boat!”
“How! no boat!” exclaimed Groslow; “it is impossible.”
“’Tis true, however,” answered the sailor; “there’s nothing in the wake
of the ship; besides, here’s the end of the cable.”
“What’s the matter?” cried Mordaunt, who, coming up out of the
hatchway, rushed to the stern, waving his torch.
“Only that our enemies have escaped; they have cut the cord and gone
off with the boat.”
Mordaunt bounded with one step to the cabin and kicked open the door.
“Empty!” he exclaimed; “the infernal demons!”
“We must pursue them,” said Groslow, “they can’t be gone far, and we
will sink them, passing over them.”
“Yes, but the fire,” ejaculated Mordaunt; “I have lighted it.”
“Ten thousand devils!” cried Groslow, rushing to the hatchway; “perhaps
there is still time to save us.”
Mordaunt answered only by a terrible laugh, threw his torch into the
sea and plunged in after it. The instant Groslow put his foot upon the
hatchway steps the ship opened like the crater of a volcano. A burst of
flame rose toward the skies with an explosion like that of a hundred
cannon; the air burned, ignited by flaming embers, then the frightful
lightning disappeared, the brands sank, one after another, into the
abyss, where they were extinguished, and save for a slight vibration in
the air, after a few minutes had elapsed one would have thought that
nothing had happened.
Only—the felucca had disappeared from the surface of the sea and
Groslow and his three sailors were consumed.
The four friends saw all this—not a single detail of this fearful scene
escaped them. At one moment, bathed as they were in a flood of
brilliant light, which illumined the sea for the space of a league,
they might each be seen, each by his own peculiar attitude and manner
expressing the awe which, even in their hearts of bronze, they could
not help experiencing. Soon a torrent of vivid sparks fell around
them—then, at last, the volcano was extinguished—then all was dark and
still—the floating bark and heaving ocean.
They sat silent and dejected.
“By Heaven!” at last said Athos, the first to speak, “by this time, I
think, all must be over.”
“Here, my lords! save me! help!” cried a voice, whose mournful accents,
reaching the four friends, seemed to proceed from some phantom of the
ocean.
All looked around; Athos himself stared.
“’Tis he! it is his voice!”
All still remained silent, the eyes of all were turned in the direction
where the vessel had disappeared, endeavoring in vain to penetrate the
darkness. After a minute or two they were able to distinguish a man,
who approached them, swimming vigorously.
Athos extended his arm toward him, pointing him out to his companions.
“Yes, yes, I see him well enough,” said D’Artagnan.
“He—again!” cried Porthos, who was breathing like a blacksmith’s
bellows; “why, he is made of iron.”
“Oh, my God!” muttered Athos.
Aramis and D’Artagnan whispered to each other.
Mordaunt made several strokes more, and raising his arm in sign of
distress above the waves: “Pity, pity on me, gentlemen, in Heaven’s
name! my strength is failing me; I am dying.”
The voice that implored aid was so piteous that it awakened pity in the
heart of Athos.
“Poor fellow!” he exclaimed.
“Indeed!” said D’Artagnan, “monsters have only to complain to gain your
sympathy. I believe he’s swimming toward us. Does he think we are going
to take him in? Row, Porthos, row.” And setting the example he plowed
his oar into the sea; two strokes took the bark on twenty fathoms
further.
“Oh! you will not abandon me! You will not leave me to perish! You will
not be pitiless!” cried Mordaunt.
“Ah! ah!” said Porthos to Mordaunt, “I think we have you now, my hero!
and there are no doors by which you can escape this time but those of
hell.”
“Oh! Porthos!” murmured the Comte de la Fère.
“Oh, pray, for mercy’s sake, don’t fly from me. For pity’s sake!” cried
the young man, whose agony-drawn breath at times, when his head went
under water, under the wave, exhaled and made the icy waters bubble.
D’Artagnan, however, who had consulted with Aramis, spoke to the poor
wretch. “Go away,” he said; “your repentance is too recent to inspire
confidence. See! the vessel in which you wished to fry us is still
smoking; and the situation in which you are is a bed of roses compared
to that in which you wished to place us and in which you have placed
Monsieur Groslow and his companions.”
“Sir!” replied Mordaunt, in a tone of deep despair, “my penitence is
sincere. Gentlemen, I am young, scarcely twenty-three years old. I was
drawn on by a very natural resentment to avenge my mother. You would
have done what I did.”
Mordaunt wanted now only two or three fathoms to reach the boat, for
the approach of death seemed to give him supernatural strength.
“Alas!” he said, “I am then to die? You are going to kill the son, as
you killed the mother! Surely, if I am culpable and if I ask for
pardon, I ought to be forgiven.”
Then, as if his strength failed him, he seemed unable to sustain
himself above the water and a wave passed over his head, which drowned
his voice.
“Oh! this is torture to me,” cried Athos.
Mordaunt reappeared.
“For my part,” said D’Artagnan, “I say this must come to an end;
murderer, as you were, of your uncle! executioner, as you were, of King
Charles! incendiary! I recommend you to sink forthwith to the bottom of
the sea; and if you come another fathom nearer, I’ll stave your wicked
head in with this oar.”
“D’Artagnan! D’Artagnan!” cried Athos, “my son, I entreat you; the
wretch is dying, and it is horrible to let a man die without extending
a hand to save him. I cannot resist doing so; he must live.”
“Zounds!” replied D’Artagnan, “why don’t you give yourself up directly,
feet and hands bound, to that wretch? Ah! Comte de la Fère, you wish to
perish by his hands! I, your son, as you call me—I will not let you!”
’Twas the first time D’Artagnan had ever refused a request from Athos.
Aramis calmly drew his sword, which he had carried between his teeth as
he swam.
“If he lays his hand on the boat’s edge I will cut it off, regicide
that he is.”
“And I,” said Porthos. “Wait.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Aramis.
“Throw myself in the water and strangle him.”
“Oh, gentlemen!” cried Athos, “be men! be Christians! See! death is
depicted on his face! Ah! do not bring on me the horrors of remorse!
Grant me this poor wretch’s life. I will bless you—I——”
“I am dying!” cried Mordaunt, “come to me! come to me!”
D’Artagnan began to be touched. The boat at this moment turned around,
and the dying man was by that turn brought nearer Athos.
“Monsieur the Comte de la Fère,” he cried, “I supplicate you! pity me!
I call on you—where are you? I see you no longer—I am dying—help me!
help me!”
“Here I am, sir!” said Athos, leaning and stretching out his arm to
Mordaunt with that air of dignity and nobility of soul habitual to him;
“here I am, take my hand and jump into our boat.”
Mordaunt made a last effort—rose—seized the hand thus extended to him
and grasped it with the vehemence of despair.
“That’s right,” said Athos; “put your other hand here.” And he offered
him his shoulder as another stay and support, so that his head almost
touched that of Mordaunt; and these two mortal enemies were in as close
an embrace as if they had been brothers.
“Now, sir,” said the count, “you are safe—calm yourself.”
“Ah! my mother,” cried Mordaunt, with eyes on fire with a look of hate
impossible to paint, “I can only offer thee one victim, but it shall at
any rate be the one thou wouldst thyself have chosen!”
And whilst D’Artagnan uttered a cry, Porthos raised the oar, and Aramis
sought a place to strike, a frightful shake given to the boat
precipitated Athos into the sea; whilst Mordaunt, with a shout of
triumph, grasped the neck of his victim, and in order to paralyze his
movements, twined arms and legs around the musketeer. For an instant,
without an exclamation, without a cry for help, Athos tried to sustain
himself on the surface of the waters, but the weight dragged him down;
he disappeared by degrees; soon nothing was to be seen except his long,
floating hair; then both men disappeared and the bubbling of the water,
which, in its turn, was soon effaced, alone indicated the spot where
these two had sunk.
Mute with horror, the three friends had remained open-mouthed, their
eyes dilated, their arms extended like statues, and, motionless as they
were, the beating of their hearts was audible. Porthos was the first
who came to himself. He tore his hair.
“Oh!” he cried, “Athos! Athos! thou man of noble heart; woe is me! I
have let thee perish!”
At this instant, in the midst of the silver circle illumined by the
light of the moon the same whirlpool which had been made by the sinking
men was again obvious, and first were seen, rising above the waves, a
wisp of hair, then a pale face with open eyes, yet, nevertheless, the
eyes of death; then a body, which, after rising of itself even to the
waist above the sea, turned gently on its back, according to the
caprice of the waves, and floated.
In the bosom of this corpse was plunged a poniard, the gold hilt of
which shone in the moonbeams.
“Mordaunt! Mordaunt!” cried the three friends; “’tis Mordaunt!”
“But Athos!” exclaimed D’Artagnan.
Suddenly the boat leaned on one side beneath a new and unexpected
weight and Grimaud uttered a shout of joy; every one turned around and
beheld Athos, livid, his eyes dim and his hands trembling, supporting
himself on the edge of the boat. Eight vigorous arms lifted him up
immediately and laid him in the boat, where directly Athos was warmed
and reanimated, reviving with the caresses and cares of his friends,
who were intoxicated with joy.
“You are not hurt?” asked D’Artagnan.
“No,” replied Athos; “and he——”
“Oh, he! now we may say at last, thank Heaven! he is really dead.
Look!” and D’Artagnan, obliging Athos to look in the direction he
pointed, showed him the body of Mordaunt floating on its back, which,
sometimes submerged, sometimes rising, seemed still to pursue the four
friends with looks of insult and mortal hatred.
At last he sank. Athos had followed him with a glance in which the
deepest melancholy and pity were expressed.
“Bravo! Athos!” cried Aramis, with an emotion very rare in him.
“A capital blow you gave!” cried Porthos.
“I have a _son_. I wished to live,” said Athos.
“In short,” said D’Artagnan, “this has been the will of God.”