The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [243]
“But I am not a foreigner, Monsieur,” she said, with the purest accent that had ever been heard between Portsmouth and Manchester. “I am Lady Clarick, and this precaution…”
“This precaution is general, Milady, and it will be useless for you to try to avoid it.”
“I shall follow you, then, Monsieur.”
And, accepting the officer’s hand, she began to go down the ladder, at the bottom of which the longboat was waiting. The officer followed her. A large cloak was spread out in the stern. The officer seated her on it and sat down beside her.
“Pull away,” he said to the sailors.
The eight oars dropped back into the water with the sound of one, made a single stroke, and the longboat seemed to fly over the surface of the water.
Five minutes later they touched land.
The officer jumped onto the quay and offered Milady his hand.
A carriage was waiting.
“This carriage is for us?” asked Milady.
“Yes, Madame,” replied the officer.
“So the hôtel is far away?”
“At the other end of town.”
“Let us go, then,” said Milady.
And she climbed resolutely into the carriage.
The officer saw to it that the bundles were carefully fastened behind the carriage, and when this operation was done, took his place beside Milady and shut the door.
At once, without any order being given and without needing to be told where to go, the coachman set off at a gallop and plunged into the streets of the town.
So strange a reception must have given Milady ample food for thought. And so, seeing that the young officer was apparently in no mood to get into conversation, she leaned back in the corner of the carriage and went over in her mind all the suppositions that occurred to her one after the other.
However, after a quarter of an hour, astonished at the length of the way, she leaned towards the coach door to see where she was being taken. There were no more houses to be seen; trees appeared in the darkness like great black phantoms chasing each other.
Milady shuddered.
“But we are no longer in town, Monsieur,” she said.
The young officer remained silent.
“I will not go any further if you do not tell me where you are taking me—that I warn you, Monsieur!”
This threat drew no response.
“Oh, this is too much!” cried Milady. “Help! Help!”
No voice answered hers; the coach continued on its rapid way; the officer seemed like a statue.
Milady looked at him with one of those terrible expressions peculiar to her face, and which so rarely failed of their effect. Anger made her eyes flash in the darkness.
The young man remained impassive.
Milady was about to open the door and throw herself out.
“Take care, Madame,” the young man said coldly, “you will kill yourself if you jump.”
Milady sat back down, fuming. The officer leaned over, looked at her in his turn, and seemed surprised to see that face, formerly so beautiful, twist with rage and become almost hideous. The cunning creature understood that she was harming herself by letting her soul be seen like that; she calmed her features, and said in a moaning voice:
“In heaven’s name, Monsieur, tell me whether it is to you, to your government, or to some enemy that I must attribute the violence that is being done to me?”
“No violence is being done to you, Madame. What is happening to you is the result of a quite simple precaution which we are forced to take with all those who land in England.”
“Then you do not know me, Monsieur?”
“This is the first time I have the honor of seeing you.”
“And, on your honor, you have no cause to hate me?”
“None, I swear to you.”
There was so much serenity, coolness, even gentleness in the young man’s voice that Milady was reassured.
Finally, after about an hour’s journey, the carriage stopped in front of an iron gate that barred a sunken road leading to a grim-looking castle, massive and isolated. Then, as the wheels rolled through fine sand, Milady heard a vast booming, which she recognized as the sound of the sea breaking on a rocky coast.
The carriage passed under