"As for me," thought Porthos, giving Mordaunt his whole attention, "were
it not for breaking in on the majesty of the situation I would leap down
from the bench, reach Mordaunt in three bounds and strangle him; I would
then take him by the feet and knock the life out of these wretched
musketeers who parody the musketeers of France. Meantime, D’Artagnan,
who is full of invention, would find some way to save the king. I must
speak to him about it."
As to Athos, his face aflame, his fists clinched, his lips bitten till
they bled, he sat there foaming with rage at that endless parliamentary
insult and that long enduring royal patience; the inflexible arm and
steadfast heart had given place to a trembling hand and a body shaken by
excitement.
At this moment the accuser concluded with these words: "The present
accusation is preferred by us in the name of the English people."
At these words there was a murmur along the benches, and a second voice,
not that of a woman, but a man’s, stout and furious, thundered behind
D’Artagnan.
"You lie!" it cried. "Nine-tenths of the English people are horrified at
what you say."
This voice was that of Athos, who, standing up with outstretched hand
and quite out of his mind, thus assailed the public accuser.
King, judges, spectators, all turned their eyes to the bench where the
four friends were seated. Mordaunt did the same and recognized the
gentleman, around whom the three other Frenchmen were standing, pale and
menacing. His eyes glittered with delight. He had discovered those to
whose death he had devoted his life. A movement of fury called to his
side some twenty of his musketeers, and pointing to the bench where his
enemies were: "Fire on that bench!" he cried.
But with the rapidity of thought D’Artagnan seized Athos by the waist,
and followed by Porthos with Aramis, leaped down from the benches,
rushed into the passages, and flying down the staircase were lost in the
crowd without, while the muskets within were pointed on some three
thousand spectators, whose piteous cries and noisy alarm stopped the
impulse already given to bloodshed.
Charles also had recognized the four Frenchmen. He put one hand on his
heart to still its beating and the other over his eyes, that he might
not witness the slaying of his faithful friends.
Mordaunt, pale and trembling with anger, rushed from the hall sword in
hand, followed by six pikemen, pushing, inquiring and panting in the
crowd; and then, having found nothing, returned.
The tumult was indescribable. More than half an hour passed before any
one could make himself heard. The judges were looking for a new outbreak
from the benches. The spectators saw the muskets leveled at them, and
divided between fear and curiosity, remained noisy and excited.
Quiet was at length restored.
"What have you to say in your defense?" asked Bradshaw of the king.
Then rising, with his head still covered, in the tone of a judge rather
than a prisoner, Charles began.
"Before questioning me," he said, "reply to my question. I was free at
Newcastle and had there concluded a treaty with both houses. Instead of
performing your part of this contract, as I performed mine, you bought
me from the Scotch, cheaply, I know, and that does honor to the economic
talent of your government. But because you have paid the price of a
slave, do you imagine that I have ceased to be your king? No. To answer
you would be to forget it. I shall only reply to you when you have
satisfied me of your right to question me. To answer you would be to
acknowledge you as my judges, and I only acknowledge you as my
executioners." And in the middle of a deathlike silence, Charles, calm,
lofty, and with his head still covered, sat down again in his arm-chair.
"Why are not my Frenchmen here?" he murmured proudly and turning his
eyes to the benches where they had appeared for a moment; "they would
have seen that their friend was worthy of their defense while alive, and
of their tears when dead."
"Well," said the president, seeing that Charles was determined to remain
silent, "so be it. We will judge you in spite of your silence. You are
accused of treason, of abuse of power, and murder. The evidence will
support it. Go, and another sitting will accomplish what you have
postponed in this."
Charles rose and turned toward Parry, whom he saw pale and with his
temples dewed with moisture.
"Well, my dear Parry," said he, "what is the matter, and what can affect
you in this manner?"
"Oh, my king," said Parry, with tears in his eyes and in a tone of
supplication, "do not look to the left as we leave the hall."
"And why, Parry?"
"Do not look, I implore you, my king."
"But what is the matter? Speak," said Charles, attempting to look across
the hedge of guards which surrounded him.
"It is--but you will not look, will you?--it is because they have had
the axe, with which criminals are executed, brought and placed there on
the table. The sight is hideous."
"Fools," said Charles, "do they take me for a coward, like themselves?
You have done well to warn me. Thank you, Parry."
When the moment arrived the king followed his guards out of the hall. As
he passed the table on which the axe was laid, he stopped, and turning
with a smile, said:
"Ah! the axe, an ingenious device, and well worthy of those who know not
what a gentleman is; you frighten me not, executioner’s axe," added he,
touching it with the cane which he held in his hand, "and I strike you
now, waiting patiently and Christianly for you to return the blow."
And shrugging his shoulders with unaffected contempt he passed on. When
he reached the door a stream of people, who had been disappointed in not
being able to get into the house and to make amends had collected to see
him come out, stood on each side, as he passed, many among them glaring
on him with threatening looks.
"How many people," thought he, "and not one true friend."
And as he uttered these words of doubt and depression within his mind, a
voice beside him said:
"Respect to fallen majesty."
The king turned quickly around, with tears in his eyes and heart. It was
an old soldier of the guards who could not see his king pass captive
before him without rendering him this final homage. But the next moment
the unfortunate man was nearly killed with heavy blows of sword-hilts,
and among those who set upon him the king recognized Captain Groslow.
"Alas!" said Charles, "that is a severe chastisement for a very trifling
fault."
He continued his walk, but he had scarcely gone a hundred paces, when a
furious fellow, leaning between two soldiers, spat in the king’s face,
as once an infamous and accursed Jew spit in the face of Jesus of
Nazareth. Loud roars of laughter and sullen murmurs arose together. The
crowd opened and closed again, undulating like a stormy sea, and the
king imagined that he saw shining in the midst of this living wave the
bright eyes of Athos.
Charles wiped his face and said with a sad smile: "Poor wretch, for half
a crown he would do as much to his own father."
The king was not mistaken. Athos and his friends, again mingling with
the throng, were taking a last look at the martyr king.
When the soldier saluted Charles, Athos’s heart bounded for joy; and
that unfortunate, on coming to himself, found ten guineas that the
French gentleman had slipped into his pocket. But when the cowardly
insulter spat in the face of the captive monarch Athos grasped his
dagger. But D’Artagnan stopped his hand and in a hoarse voice cried,
"Wait!"
Athos stopped. D’Artagnan, leaning on Athos, made a sign to Porthos and
Aramis to keep near them and then placed himself behind the man with the
bare arms, who was still laughing at his own vile pleasantry and
receiving the congratulations of several others.
The man took his way toward the city. The four friends followed him. The
man, who had the appearance of being a butcher, descended a little steep
and isolated street, looking on to the river, with two of his friends.
Arrived at the bank of the river the three men perceived that they were
followed, turned around, and looking insolently at the Frenchmen, passed
some jests from one to another.
"I don’t know English, Athos," said D’Artagnan; "but you know it and
will interpret for me."
Then quickening their steps they passed the three men, but turned back
immediately, and D’Artagnan walked straight up to the butcher and
touching him on the chest with the tip of his finger, said to Athos:
"Say this to him in English: ’You are a coward. You have insulted a
defenseless man. You have befouled the face of your king. You must
die.’"
Athos, pale as a ghost, repeated these words to the man, who, seeing the
bodeful preparations that were making, put himself in an attitude of
defense. Aramis, at this movement, drew his sword.
"No," cried D’Artagnan, "no steel. Steel is for gentlemen."
And seizing the butcher by the throat:
"Porthos," said he, "kill this fellow for me with a single blow."
Porthos raised his terrible fist, which whistled through the air like a
sling, and the portentous mass fell with a smothered crash on the
insulter’s skull and crushed it. The man fell like an ox beneath the
poleaxe. His companions, horror-struck, could neither move nor cry out.
"Tell them this, Athos," resumed D’Artagnan; "thus shall all die who
forget that a captive man is sacred and that a captive king doubly
represents the Lord."
Athos repeated D’Artagnan’s words.
The fellows looked at the body of their companion, swimming in blood,
and then recovering voice and legs together, ran screaming off.
"Justice is done," said Porthos, wiping his forehead.
"And now," said D’Artagnan to Athos, "entertain no further doubts about
me; I undertake all that concerns the king."
64. Whitehall.
The parliament condemned Charles to death, as might have been foreseen.
Political judgments are generally vain formalities, for the same
passions which give rise to the accusation ordain to the condemnation.
Such is the atrocious logic of revolutions.
Although our friends were expecting that condemnation, it filled them
with grief. D’Artagnan, whose mind was never more fertile in resources
than in critical emergencies, swore again that he would try all
conceivable means to prevent the denouement of the bloody tragedy. But
by what means? As yet he could form no definite plan; all must depend on
circumstances. Meanwhile, it was necessary at all hazards, in order to
gain time, to put some obstacle in the way of the execution on the
following day--the day appointed by the judges. The only way of doing
that was to cause the disappearance of the London executioner. The
headsman out of the way, the sentence could not be executed. True, they
could send for the headsman of the nearest town, but at least a day
would be gained, and a day might be sufficient for the rescue.
D’Artagnan took upon himself that more than difficult task.
Another thing, not less essential, was to warn Charles Stuart of the
attempt to be made, so that he might assist his rescuers as much as
possible, or at least do nothing to thwart their efforts. Aramis assumed
that perilous charge. Charles Stuart had asked that Bishop Juxon might
be permitted to visit him. Mordaunt had called on the bishop that very
evening to apprise him of the religious desire expressed by the king and
also of Cromwell’s permission. Aramis determined to obtain from the
bishop, through fear or by persuasion, consent that he should enter in
the bishop’s place, and clad in his sacerdotal robes, the prison at
Whitehall.
Finally, Athos undertook to provide, in any event, the means of leaving
England--in case either of failure or of success.
The night having come they made an appointment to meet at eleven o’clock
at the hotel, and each started out to fulfill his dangerous mission.
The palace of Whitehall was guarded by three regiments of cavalry and by
the fierce anxiety of Cromwell, who came and went or sent his generals
or his agents continually. Alone in his usual room, lighted by two
candles, the condemned monarch gazed sadly on the luxury of his past
greatness, just as at the last hour one sees the images of life more
mildly brilliant than of yore.
Parry had not quitted his master, and since his condemnation had not
ceased to weep. Charles, leaning on a table, was gazing at a medallion
of his wife and daughter; he was waiting first for Juxon, then for
martyrdom.
At times he thought of those brave French gentlemen who had appeared to
him from a distance of a hundred leagues fabulous and unreal, like the
forms that appear in dreams. In fact, he sometimes asked himself if all
that was happening to him was not a dream, or at least the delirium of a
fever. He rose and took a few steps as if to rouse himself from his
torpor and went as far as the window; he saw glittering below him the
muskets of the guards. He was thereupon constrained to admit that he was
indeed awake and that his bloody dream was real.
Charles returned in silence to his chair, rested his elbow on the table,
bowed his head upon his hand and reflected.
"Alas!" he said to himself, "if I only had for a confessor one of those
lights of the church, whose soul has sounded all the mysteries of life,
all the littlenesses of greatness, perhaps his utterance would overawe
the voice that wails within my soul. But I shall have a priest of vulgar
mind, whose career and fortune I have ruined by my misfortune. He will
speak to me of God and death, as he has spoken to many another dying
man, not understanding that this one leaves his throne to an usurper,
his children to the cold contempt of public charity."
And he raised the medallion to his lips.
It was a dull, foggy night. A neighboring church clock slowly struck the
hour. The flickering light of the two candles showed fitful phantom
shadows in the lofty room. These were the ancestors of Charles, standing
back dimly in their tarnished frames.
An awful sadness enveloped the heart of Charles. He buried his brow in
his hands and thought of the world, so beautiful when one is about to
leave it; of the caresses of children, so pleasing and so sweet,
especially when one is parting from his children never to see them
again; then of his wife, the noble and courageous woman who had
sustained him to the last moment. He drew from his breast the diamond
cross and the star of the Garter which she had sent him by those
generous Frenchmen; he kissed it, and then, as he reflected, that she
would never again see those things till he lay cold and mutilated in the
tomb, there passed over him one of those icy shivers which may be called
forerunners of death.
Then, in that chamber which recalled to him so many royal souvenirs,
whither had come so many courtiers, the scene of so much flattering
homage, alone with a despairing servant, whose feeble soul could afford
no support to his own, the king at last yielded to sorrow, and his
courage sank to a level with that feebleness, those shadows, and that
wintry cold. That king, who was so grand, so sublime in the hour of
death, meeting his fate with a smile of resignation on his lips, now in
that gloomy hour wiped away a tear which had fallen on the table and
quivered on the gold embroidered cloth.
Suddenly the door opened, an ecclesiastic in episcopal robes entered,
followed by two guards, to whom the king waved an imperious gesture. The
guards retired; the room resumed its obscurity.
"Juxon!" cried Charles, "Juxon, thank you, my last friend; you come at a
fitting moment."
The bishop looked anxiously at the man sobbing in the ingle-nook.
"Come, Parry," said the king, "cease your tears."
"If it’s Parry," said the bishop, "I have nothing to fear; so allow me
to salute your majesty and to tell you who I am and for what I am come."
At this sight and this voice Charles was about to cry out, when Aramis
placed his finger on his lips and bowed low to the king of England.
"The chevalier!" murmured Charles.
"Yes, sire," interrupted Aramis, raising his voice, "Bishop Juxon, the
faithful knight of Christ, obedient to your majesty’s wishes."
Charles clasped his hands, amazed and stupefied to find that these
foreigners, without other motive than that which their conscience
imposed on them, thus combated the will of a people and the destiny of a
king.
"You!" he said, "you! how did you penetrate hither? If they recognize
you, you are lost."
"Care not for me, sire; think only of yourself. You see, your friends
are wakeful. I know not what we shall do yet, but four determined men
can do much. Meanwhile, do not be surprised at anything that happens;
prepare yourself for every emergency."
Charles shook his head.
"Do you know that I die to-morrow at ten o’clock?"
"Something, your majesty, will happen between now and then to make the
execution impossible."
The king looked at Aramis with astonishment.
At this moment a strange noise, like the unloading of a cart, and
followed by a cry of pain, was heard beneath the window.
"Do you hear?" said the king.
"I hear," said Aramis, "but I understand neither the noise nor the cry
of pain."
"I know not who can have uttered the cry," said the king, "but the noise
is easily understood. Do you know that I am to be beheaded outside this
window? Well, these boards you hear unloaded are the posts and planks to
build my scaffold. Some workmen must have fallen underneath them and
been hurt."
Aramis shuddered in spite of himself.
"You see," said the king, "that it is useless for you to resist. I am
condemned; leave me to my death."
"My king," said Aramis, "they well may raise a scaffold, but they cannot
make an executioner."
"What do you mean?" asked the king.
"I mean that at this hour the headsman has been got out of the way by
force or persuasion. The scaffold will be ready by to-morrow, but the
headsman will be wanting and they will put it off till the day after
to-morrow."
"What then?" said the king.
"To-morrow night we shall rescue you."
"How can that be?" cried the king, whose face was lighted up, in spite
of himself, by a flash of joy.
"Oh! sir," cried Parry, "may you and yours be blessed!"
"How can it be?" repeated the king. "I must know, so that I may assist
you if there is any chance."
"I know nothing about it," continued Aramis, "but the cleverest, the
bravest, the most devoted of us four said to me when I left him, ’Tell
the king that to-morrow at ten o’clock at night, we shall carry him
off.’ He has said it and will do it."
"Tell me the name of that generous friend," said the king, "that I may
cherish for him an eternal gratitude, whether he succeeds or not."
"D’Artagnan, sire, the same who had so nearly rescued you when Colonel
Harrison made his untimely entrance."
"You are, indeed, wonderful men," said the king; "if such things had
been related to me I should not have believed them."
"Now, sire," resumed Aramis, "listen to me. Do not forget for a single
instant that we are watching over your safety; observe the smallest
gesture, the least bit of song, the least sign from any one near you;
watch everything, hear everything, interpret everything."
"Oh, chevalier!" cried the king, "what can I say to you? There is no
word, though it should come from the profoundest depth of my heart, that
can express my gratitude. If you succeed I do not say that you will save
a king; no, in presence of the scaffold as I am, royalty, I assure you,
is a very small affair; but you will save a husband to his wife, a
father to his children. Chevalier, take my hand; it is that of a friend
who will love you to his last sigh."
Aramis stooped to kiss the king’s hand, but Charles clasped his and
pressed it to his heart.
At this moment a man entered, without even knocking at the door. Aramis
tried to withdraw his hand, but the king still held it. The man was one
of those Puritans, half preacher and half soldier, who swarmed around
Cromwell.
"What do you want, sir?" said the king.
"I desire to know if the confession of Charles Stuart is at an end?"
said the stranger.
"And what is it to you?" replied the king; "we are not of the same
religion."
"All men are brothers," said the Puritan. "One of my brothers is about
to die and I come to prepare him."
"Bear with him," whispered Aramis; "it is doubtless some spy."
"After my reverend lord bishop," said the king to the man, "I shall hear
you with pleasure, sir."
The man retired, but not before examining the supposed Juxon with an
attention which did not escape the king.
"Chevalier," said the king, when the door was closed, "I believe you are
right and that this man only came here with evil intentions. Take care
that no misfortune befalls you when you leave."
"I thank your majesty," said Aramis, "but under these robes I have a
coat of mail, a pistol and a dagger."
"Go, then, sir, and God keep you!"
The king accompanied him to the door, where Aramis pronounced his
benediction upon him, and passing through the ante-rooms, filled with
soldiers, jumped into his carriage and drove to the bishop’s palace.
Juxon was waiting for him impatiently.
"Well?" said he, on perceiving Aramis.
"Everything has succeeded as I expected; spies, guards, satellites, all
took me for you, and the king blesses you while waiting for you to bless
him."
"May God protect you, my son; for your example has given me at the same
time hope and courage."
Aramis resumed his own attire and left Juxon with the assurance that he
might again have recourse to him.
He had scarcely gone ten yards in the street when he perceived that he
was followed by a man, wrapped in a large cloak. He placed his hand on
his dagger and stopped. The man came straight toward him. It was
Porthos.
"My dear friend," cried Aramis.
"You see, we had each our mission," said Porthos; "mine was to guard you
and I am doing so. Have you seen the king?"
"Yes, and all goes well."
"We are to meet our friends at the hotel at eleven."
It was then striking half-past ten by St. Paul’s.
Arrived at the hotel it was not long before Athos entered.
"All’s well," he cried, as he entered; "I have hired a cedar wherry, as
light as a canoe, as easy on the wing as any swallow. It is waiting for
us at Greenwich, opposite the Isle of Dogs, manned by a captain and four
men, who for the sum of fifty pounds sterling will keep themselves at
our disposition three successive nights. Once on board we drop down the
Thames and in two hours are on the open sea. In case I am killed, the
captain’s name is Roger and the skiff is called the Lightning. A
handkerchief, tied at the four corners, is to be the signal."
Next moment D’Artagnan entered.
"Empty your pockets," said he; "I want a hundred pounds, and as for my
own----" and he emptied them inside out.
The sum was collected in a minute. D’Artagnan ran out and returned
directly after.
"There," said he, "it’s done. Ough! and not without a deal of trouble,
too."
"Has the executioner left London?" asked Athos.
"Ah, you see that plan was not sure enough; he might go out by one gate
and return by another."
"Where is he, then?"
"In the cellar."
"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.
65. 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
Fere 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 Fere?" 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 Fere, 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?" |
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