The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [238]
“In that case,” said Athos, “Planchet must receive seven hundred livres for going and seven hundred for coming back; and Bazin three hundred livres for going and three hundred for coming back. That will reduce the sum to five thousand livres. We’ll take a thousand each to use as we see fit, and let the abbé keep the remaining thousand for extraordinary cases or common needs. Does that suit you all?”
“My dear Athos,” said Aramis, “you speak like Nestor, who, as everyone knows, was the wisest of the Greeks.”173
“Well, then all’s said,” Athos continued, “Planchet and Bazin will go. On the whole, I’m not sorry to keep Grimaud: he’s used to my ways, and I value that. Yesterday’s events must already have shaken him; this journey would do him in.”
They sent for Planchet and gave him his instructions. He had already been warned by d’Artagnan, who first announced that it would mean glory, then money, and finally danger.
“I’ll carry the letter in the lining of my coat,” said Planchet, “and swallow it if they catch me.”
“But then you won’t be able to carry out your mission,” said d’Artagnan.
“Give me a copy of it tonight, and I’ll know it by heart tomorrow.”
D’Artagnan looked around at his friends as if to say: “Well, what did I promise you?”
“Now,” he went on, addressing Planchet, “you have eight days to reach Lord de Winter, you have eight days to come back here, sixteen days in all. If on the sixteenth day after your departure, at eight o’clock in the evening, you have not turned up—no money, even if it’s five after eight.”
“In that case, Monsieur,” said Planchet, “buy me a watch.”
“Take this one,” said Athos, handing him his own with careless generosity, “and be a brave lad. Know that if you talk, if you blab, if you dawdle, you are cutting the throat of your master, who has such great confidence in your faithfulness that he has vouched for you to us. But know also that if any harm comes to d’Artagnan through some fault of yours, I’ll find you wherever you are and will do so in order to slit your belly open.”
“Oh, Monsieur!” cried Planchet, humiliated by the suspicion and frightened above all by the musketeer’s calm air.
“And as for me,” said Porthos, rolling his big eyes, “know that I’ll skin you alive!”
“Ah, Monsieur!”
“And as for me,” said Aramis, in his soft and melodious voice, “know that I’ll roast you over a slow fire like a savage.”
“Ah, Monsieur!”
And Planchet burst into tears, we will not venture to say whether from terror, on account of the threats made against him, or from the emotion of seeing four friends so closely united.
D’Artagnan took his hand and embraced him.
“You see, Planchet,” he said to him, “these gentlemen are saying this to you out of affection for me, but at bottom they love you.”
“Ah, Monsieur!” said Planchet, “I’ll either succeed, or they’ll cut me in quarters. If they cut me in quarters, you may be sure that there is not one piece that will talk.”
It was decided that Planchet would leave the next day at eight o’clock in the morning, so that during the night, as he had said, he could learn the letter by heart. He gained exactly twelve hours that way, as he was to return on the sixteenth day at eight o’clock in the evening.
The next morning, just as he was going to mount his horse, d’Artagnan, who at the bottom of his heart had a weakness for the duke, took Planchet aside.
“Listen,” he said to him, “when you’ve given the letter to Lord de Winter and he has read it, tell him: ‘Watch over His Grace the duke of Buckingham, for they want to assassinate him.’ You understand, Planchet, this is so serious and so important that I didn’t even want to confess to my friends that I was entrusting you with this secret, and I wouldn’t write it down for you even for