The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [313]
“How far from here?”
Grimaud merely crooked his finger.
“Is she alone?”
Grimaud nodded.
“Gentlemen,” Athos said, “she is alone, she is half a league from here, somewhere by the river.”
“Bravo, my good Grimaud, take us there at once,” D’Artagnan ordered.
Grimaud then led them across some fields toward a brook, some five hundred yards distant, which they forded. Thanks to a flash of lightning they perceived the hamlet of Enguinghem.
“Is that the place, Grimaud?”
Grimaud shook his head negatively and the avengers continued on their way. Presently another flash of lightning wreathed its serpentine way across the heavens. Grimaud raised his arm and they perceived a small lonely house on the banks of the river, three hundred feet from the ferry.
“This is the place,” Athos announced. Just then a man who had been lying in a ditch arose; it was Mousqueton. He pointed to the lighted window.
“She is in there, gentlemen!” he said.
“And Bazin?”
“I have been watching the window,” Mousqueton replied. “He is watching the door.”
“Good,” said Athos, “my compliments. You are excellent servants.”
With which he sprang from his horse, tossed the bridle to Grimaud and approached the window, motioning to the others to make for the door.
The little house was surrounded by a low quickset hedge which Athos hurdled; then he moved toward the window. There were no shutters, but the half-curtains were carefully drawn. Athos stepped on to the outer window-sill in order to peer over the curtains.
By the light of a lamp within, he distinguished a woman wrapped in a dark colored mantle, seated on a stool close to a dying fire; her elbows rested on a mean table and she held her head in between her hands, white as ivory. He could not make out her face, but a sinister smile flickered across his lips. There could be no mistake; here was the woman they sought.
Suddenly one of their horses neighed. Milady looked up toward the window to see the drawn pallid face of Athos, glued to the window pane. Realizing that she had recognized him, Athos pushed the pane in with hand and knee; the glass yielded and fell clattering to the floor. Athos, the very specter of vengeance, leaped into the room.
Milady rushed to the door and opened it; at the threshold, even paler and more threatening than Athos, stood D’Artagnan.
Milady recoiled with a cry. D’Artagnan, thinking she had some means of escape, drew a pistol from his belt. But Athos raised his hand in warning.
“Put back that weapon,” he ordered. “We must judge this woman, not murder her. Be patient for a few moments and you shall find satisfaction.”
And he invited the others to enter.
There was something so impersonal, so solemn and so commanding in the attitude of Athos that D’Artagnan could not but obey, meekly as a child. It was as if out of a worldly musketeer some force had suddenly created a justiciar, sent from heaven, to preside with complete equity over an all-too-human lawsuit. Porthos, Aramis, Lord Winter and the man in the red cloak entered the house; the lackeys stood guard at door and window.
Milady fell back into a chair, her hands outstretched as though to conjure away this terrible apparition. Recognizing her brother-in-law, she uttered a cry of surprise and terror.
“What do you want?” she screamed.
“We want Charlotte Backson,” Athos replied impersonally, “who was first called the Comtesse de la Fère and subsequently Lady Clark, Baroness of Sheffield.”
“Well, here I am!” Milady murmured in a paroxysm of terror. “What do you want of me?”
“We want to judge you according to your crimes,” Athos replied. “You shall be free to defend yourself and to justify yourself if you can. Monsieur D’Artagnan, it is for you to accuse her first.”
D’Artagnan stepped forward.
“Before God and before man,” he said, “I accuse this woman of having poisoned Constance Bonacieux, who perished yesterday evening.”
He looked up at Porthos and at Aramis.
“I bear witness to the truth of it!” said Aramis and Porthos: “I swear this is the truth.”
D’Artagnan continued:
“Before God and before man, I accuse