The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [285]
“From France?” cried Buckingham, forgetting all except the thought of whom this letter might be from.
Felton seized the moment and plunged the knife into his side up to the hilt.
“Ah, traitor!” cried Buckingham, “you’ve killed me…”
“Murder!” shouted Patrick.
Felton looked around for a way to escape and, seeing the door free, rushed into the neighboring room, which, as we have said, was where the deputies from La Rochelle were waiting, crossed it at a run, and raced for the stairs. But on the top step he ran into Lord de Winter, who, seeing him pale, wild, livid, stained with blood on his hand and face, threw himself on his neck, crying:
“I knew it, I guessed it, and I came a minute too late! Oh, wretch that I am!”
Felton offered no resistance. Lord de Winter handed him over to the guards, who, while awaiting further orders, led him to a small terrace overlooking the sea, and himself hurried to Buckingham’s dressing room.
At the duke’s cry, at Patrick’s shout, the man whom Felton had met in the antechamber rushed into the room.
He found the duke lying on a sofa, his clenched hand pressed to his wound.
“La Porte,” said the duke in a dying voice, “La Porte, do you come from her?”
“Yes, Monseigneur,” replied the faithful servant of Anne d’Autriche, “but too late, perhaps.”
“Silence, La Porte, you might be overheard! Patrick, let no one in. Oh, I will never know what she wanted to tell me! My God, I’m dying!”
And the duke fainted.
Meanwhile, Lord de Winter, the deputies, the leaders of the expedition, the officers of Buckingham’s household had burst into his room. Everywhere cries of despair rang out. The news that filled the palace with groans and laments soon overflowed everywhere and spread through the town.
A cannon shot announced that something new and unexpected had just happened.
Lord de Winter tore his hair.
“A minute too late!” he cried, “a minute too late! Oh, my God, my God, how terrible!”
Indeed, they had come at seven o’clock in the morning to tell him that a rope ladder was swinging from one of the castle windows. He had run at once to Milady’s room, had found the room empty, the window open, and the bars cut through. He had recalled the verbal instructions d’Artagnan had sent him by his messenger; he had trembled for the duke, and, running to the stable, without taking time to saddle his horse, had leaped upon the first he came to, had raced flat-out, and, jumping down in the courtyard, had gone rushing up the stairs, and on the top step, as we have said, had run into Felton.
However, the duke was not dead. He came to, reopened his eyes, and hope returned to all their hearts.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “leave me alone with Patrick and La Porte. Ah, it’s you, de Winter! You sent me an odd sort of madman this morning; look what state he’s left me in!”
“Oh, Milord!” cried the baron, “I’ll never forgive myself!”
“And that will be wrong of you, my dear de Winter,” said Buckingham, holding out his hand to him. “I know of no man who deserves to be mourned throughout another man’s life—but leave us, I beg you.”
The baron went out sobbing.
In the dressing room there remained only the wounded duke, La Porte, and Patrick.
The doctor had been sent for, but he could not be found.
“You will live, Milord, you will live,” repeated Anne d’Autriche’s messenger, kneeling beside the duke’s sofa.
“What does she write to me?” Buckingham said weakly, streaming with blood and overcoming immense pain in order to speak of her he loved. “What does she write to me? Read me her letter.”
“Oh, Milord!” said La Porte.
“Obey, La Porte. Don’t you see I have no time to lose?”
La Porte broke the seal and placed the parchment under the duke’s eyes; but Buckingham tried in vain to make out the handwriting.
“Read it, then,” he said, “read it. I can’t see anymore. Read it! For soon I may not be able to hear anymore, and I’ll die without knowing what she has written to me.”
La Porte made no more difficulties, and read:
Milord,
By all that I have suffered through you