The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [291]
“—you will also give her this knife!” Buckingham gasped, pressing La Porte’s hand.
He found just strength enough to place the sachet at the bottom of the silver casket and drop the knife in. Next he motioned to La Porte that he was no longer able to speak. Then, in a final convulsion he could not master, he slid from the sofa to the floor. Patrick uttered a loud cry. Buckingham attempted to smile a last time but Death arrested his thought, which remained impressed upon his brow like a last kiss of love.
At this moment the Duke’s physician arrived, much distraught. They had not been able to reach him before because he had already boarded the flagship. He approached the Duke, took his hand, held it for an instant in his and letting it fall:
“All is useless,” he whispered, “His Grace is dead.”
“Dead!” Patrick screamed. “His Grace dead!”
At this cry the crowd returned to Buckingham’s apartment to mourn the passing of their master. Lord Winter, assured that Bucking-ham had expired, ran to the terrace where Felton was still under guard. By now the young man had regained his natural coolness and self-possession.
“You traitor, you wretch, what have you done?” the nobleman said.
“I have avenged myself!”
“Avenged yourself?” Lord Winter stared, incredulous. Then mastering his fury: “Say rather that you have served as the tool of that accursed woman. But remember, I swear by all that is holy, this crime shall be her last!”
Felton looked him in the eye with perfect composure.
“I do not know what you mean, My Lord!” He bowed his head. “I do not know of whom you speak. I killed the Duke of Buckingham because he twice refused you my commission as Captain. I punished him for his injustice, that is all.”
Lord Winter, nonplussed, watched the men bind Felton: he could make nothing, absolutely nothing of such callousness in one so young and recently so close to his heart. One thing alone, he thought, could cast a shadow over the youth’s pallid brow. And, observing Felton, Lord Winter guessed that at every sound he heard, the naïve Puritan fancied he recognized the step and voice of Milady, coming to throw herself in his arms, to accuse herself and to share his death.
Suddenly Felton started. His glance, ranging over the harbor, had become fixed on a tiny speck out at sea. With the eagle eye of a sailor he had identified what the average man would have mistaken for a gull poised on the waves. It was the white sail of a sloop heading for France.
Felton turned ashen, placed his hand upon his heart which was breaking and suddenly understood the full extent of all her treachery.
“One last favor, My Lord!” he begged.
“Well?”
“What o’clock is it?”
The nobleman drew out his watch.
“It lacks ten minutes to nine.”
Milady had sailed more than an hour before the time stipulated. Hearing the cannon boom, she had immediately given orders to weigh anchor. Now the sloop was bobbing under a bright blue sky far and safe from shore.
With the inherent fatalism and resignation of the fanatic:
“God has willed it so, God’s will be done!” Felton sighed. But he could not tear his glance away from that ship and from the vision he glimpsed of the white phantom for whom he had sacrificed his life.
“You shall be punished in your own person, poor wretch,” Lord Winter declared. “But on the head of my brother whom I loved so dearly, I vow that your accomplice will suffer a worse fate!”
Felton bowed his head without uttering a syllable. Lord Winter swung on his heel, ran down the stairs and made straight for the port.
LX
OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN FRANCE
On hearing of Buckingham’s death, Charles I, King of England, was desperately afraid lest the news discourage his allies of La Rochelle. As Richelieu was to write later in his memoirs, the British monarch attempted to keep this news a secret as long as he could. He closed all the ports in his kingdom and saw to it that no vessel left the island until the forces that Buckingham had mustered were on their way to France. Buckingham gone, His Majesty himself undertook to direct preparations