The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [318]
Milady, during the crossing, had contrived to shake free from the rope binding her feet. Reaching shore, she jumped lightly from the boat and took to her heels. But the ground was wet. Having scaled the bank, she slipped and fell to her knees.
What passed through her mind at that instant? Perhaps she realized fatalistically that all was at an end. Perhaps, even she, adamant by nature, was at long last beaten. Perhaps she felt, superstitiously, that Heaven itself had vowed her destruction. At all events, she stayed very still there, kneeling on the top of the embankment.
The executioner raised his arms very slowly . . . a ray of moonlight illumined the blade of his broadsword . . . his arms fell down again smartly . . . the whir of his weapon cut across the silent air (or did the spectators imagine it?) . . . and, after one terrified shriek, his victim fell, severed under the blow. . . .
The man from Lille then took off his red cloak, spread it out on the turf, placed the body upon it and tossed the head on it after the body. Then he gathered it up and, his grisly burden over his shoulder, returned to his boat.
Midstream, he swung his boat round. Raising his red cloak and its contents over the water:
“God’s justice and will and mercy be done!” he cried in a loud voice.
Then he dropped the cloak overboard and the waters closed up about it.
Three days later, the musketeers returned to Paris. They had not overstayed their leave of absence and, on the evening of their arrival, they paid their customary call on Monsieur de Tréville.
“Well, gentlemen,” the good Captain inquired, “did you enjoy yourselves on your excursion?”
“Prodigiously!” Athos replied, speaking for one and all.
LXVII
OF THE CARDINAL, HIS AGENT AND A
LIEUTENANT’S COMMISSION
On the sixth day of the following month the King, true to the promise he had made to My Lord Cardinal, left his capital, still stunned by the news—which was spreading like wildfire—of Buckingham’s assassination.
The Queen of course had frequently been warned that the man she loved so passionately was in great danger, but when she heard of his death she refused to believe it. Rashly she exclaimed:
“It cannot be true, he has just written to me!”
On the morrow, however, she was forced to credit the fatal tidings, for La Porte arrived from London to confirm them. Like everyone else, he had been detained by order of King Charles I; now he came back bearing the Duke’s dying gift to the Queen.
King Louis, overcome with joy, did not even trouble to dissemble; indeed he paraded his delight before the Queen with immense affectation. Like all weak-spirited men, Louis XIII was wanting in generosity.
Soon, however, he relapsed into boredom and ill-health, for he was the least cheerful and sanguine of men. He knew that, returning to the Army, he would be returning to slavery. Nevertheless that is exactly what he did. The Cardinal was for him the fascinating serpent, himself was the fascinated bird which hops from branch to branch without power to escape.
Thus the journey to La Rochelle was full of melancholy. Our four friends, in particular, amazed their comrades by their unwonted dejection, as they advanced, side by side as usual but with heads bowed and eyes averted. Athos alone looked up from time to time, his eyes flashing and his lips curled in a wry smile. Then, like his comrades, he sank back again into deep meditation.
Arriving at a city, as soon as the escort had conducted the King to his quarters, the four friends either retired directly to their bullets or sought out some secluded tavern where they neither gambled nor drank but merely conversed in hushed tones, looking carefully about them to make sure no one was listening.
One day the King stopped off for some shooting, the magpies being particularly tempting. Our four friends as usual preferred a quiet tavern on the main road to a few hours of sport.
As they sat talking, a man came galloping up from La Rochelle, stopped at the door to order a glass of wine and as he did so stared into the room where