The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [209]
Wherever the King halted, so did the musketeers. Thus D’Artagnan, a mere guardsman, was separated from his friends; it occasioned him a certain annoyance which would have been an extreme anxiety had he suspected what unknown dangers surrounded him. Nevertheless he reached the camp before La Rochelle on September 10, 1627, to find things at a stalemate. The Duke of Buckingham and his Englishmen were still masters of the Ile de Ré; they were vainly pursuing the siege of the citadel of Saint Martin and of the Fort de la Prée. Hostilities with La Rochelle had started two or three days before, over a fortress newly set up close to the city walls by the Duc d’Angoulême. His Majesty’s Guards, under the command of Monsieur des Essarts, took up quarters at the Convent of the Minim Friars. D’Artagnan, intent on transferring to the musketeers, formed few friendships with his own comrades; he was lonely, a prey to his own thoughts.
These thoughts were far from pleasurable. Since his descent upon Paris—now long ago or was it yesterday?—he had been embroiled in public affairs. But his private affairs showed scant progress, whether in his amours or in making of his fortune. As to love, the only woman he craved was Madame Bonacieux and Madame Bonacieux had vanished into thin air.
As for making his fortune, humble though he was, he had made a sworn enemy of the Cardinal before whom even the King trembled. The Cardinal could so easily crush him; and the marvel was that he had not yet done so. In the forbearance of the prelate, D’Artagnan saw a ray of light beckoning toward a more promising future.
There was another enemy, too, less to be feared, perhaps, but not to be dismissed blithely: Milady.
Against this, D’Artagnan had acquired the protection and the friendship of the Queen. But Her Majesty’s protection was one more cause for immediate persecution. Of what avail had the Queen’s benevolence been for Monsieur de Chalais and, more recently, for Madame Bonacieux?
His clearest gain in all this was the diamond, worth five or six thousand livres, which he sported on his finger. Yet of what use was it at the moment? Suppose he kept it and, in better days, presented it to the Queen as a reminder of the circumstances in which she had given it? Today it was worth no more than the stones he trod underfoot.
The stones he trod underfoot? Ay, for as he meditated D’Artagnan was walking alone down an attractive lane which led from the camp to the village of Angoutin. His musings took him farther afield than he realized; the last feeble rays of the setting sun showed him that he was far beyond the camp limits. Suddenly he started in surprise as he detected what looked like the glitter of a musket barrel behind a hedge to his right. Quick of eye and ready of understanding, he realized that this musket was not planted there of its own volition and that whoever shouldered it was no friend. He therefore decided to take to the open when on his left, behind a rock, he glimpsed the muzzle of another musket.
“I am between the devil and the deep blue sea!” he mused. “An ambush, God help me!”
Looking swiftly at the first musket, he noticed somewhat anxiously that it was being slowly leveled in his direction; then, the moment he saw the muzzle come to a standstill, he threw himself flat on the ground. A shot whizzed by just over his head.
Aware he had no time to lose, D’Artagnan sprang up just in time to miss a bullet from the left, which scattered the gravel on which he had lain a moment before.
Now D’Artagnan was no foolhardy hero who seeks a ridiculous death in order to be acclaimed for refusing to withdraw an inch. Besides, sheer courage was out of the question here; he was trapped and had no means of facing his enemies.
“A third shot and I am done for!” he thought as he took to his heels, darting back to camp at the double, with all the celerity of a Gascon—and Gascons are noted for their nimbleness and wind. Fast though our Gascon sped, the first bandit had reloaded