The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [282]
“He’s leaving tomorrow? Where for?”
“For La Rochelle.”
“He mustn’t leave!” cried Milady, forgetting her accustomed presence of mind.
“Don’t worry,” replied Felton, “he won’t leave.”
Milady jumped for joy. She had just read to the bottom of the young man’s heart: the death of Buckingham was clearly spelled out there.
“Felton…” she said, “you are as great as Judas Maccabaeus!191 If you die, I will die with you—that is all that I can say.”
“Silence!” said Felton. “We’re here.”
Indeed, they touched the sloop.
Felton climbed up the ladder first and gave his hand to Milady, while the sailors supported her, for the sea was still quite choppy.
A moment later they were on deck.
“Captain,” said Felton, “here is the person I spoke to you about, who is to be taken to France safe and sound.”
“For a thousand pistoles,” said the captain.
“I’ve already given you five hundred.”
“That’s so,” said the captain.
“And here are the other five hundred,” picked up Milady, placing her hand on the pouch of gold.
“No,” said the captain, “I have only one word, and I have given it to this young man. The other five hundred pistoles are due me on reaching Boulogne.”
“And we will reach it?”
“Safe and sound,” said the captain, “or my name’s not Jack Butler.”
“Well,” said Milady, “if you keep your word, I’ll give you not five hundred but a thousand pistoles.”
“Hurrah for you, then, my lovely lady,” cried the captain, “and may God keep sending me customers like Your Ladyship!”
“In the meantime,” said Felton, “take us to the little bay of Chichester, before Portsmouth. You know you’ve agreed to take us there.”
The captain replied by ordering the necessary maneuver, and towards seven o’clock in the morning, the little vessel dropped anchor in the said harbor.
During this passage, Felton told Milady everything: how, instead of going to London, he had chartered this little vessel; how he had come back; how he had climbed the wall by placing crampons in the gaps between the stones to rest his feet on; and how finally, on reaching the bars, he had attached the ladder. Milady knew the rest.
It was agreed that Milady would wait for Felton until ten o’clock. If he had not come back by ten o’clock, she would leave.
In that case, supposing he was at liberty, he would rejoin her in France, at the convent of the Carmelites in Béthune.
LIX
WHAT HAPPENED IN PORTSMOUTH ON THE TWENTY-THIRD OF AUGUST 1628
Felton took leave of Milady as a brother going for a simple walk takes leave of his sister, by kissing her hand.
Generally, he seemed to be in his usual state of calm, only an unaccustomed light shone in his eyes, like the glitter of a fever. His brow was still paler than usual, his teeth were clenched, and his speech had a curt and abrupt accent which indicated that something dark was stirring in him.
As long as he was in the skiff that brought him to land, he sat with his face turned towards Milady, who, standing on deck, followed him with her eyes. They were both rather reassured about the fear of being pursued: no one ever entered Milady’s room before nine o’clock, and it took nine hours to get from the castle to London.
Felton stepped ashore, climbed the little crest that led to the top of the cliff, saluted Milady a last time, and set out for the town.
After about a hundred paces, as the terrain sloped downwards, he could no longer see more than the mast of the sloop.
He raced off at once in the direction of Portsmouth, whose towers and buildings he saw before him, about a half mile away, emerging from the morning mist.
The sea beyond Portsmouth was covered with ships, whose masts, like a forest of poplars stripped bare by winter, swayed to the blowing of the wind.
Felton, during his rapid march, went back over what ten years of ascetic meditations and a long stay in the milieu of the Puritans had furnished him by way of true or false accusations against the favorite of James VI192 and Charles I.
When he compared the public