The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [310]
At these words, which left her no hope, Milady raised herself to her full height and was about to speak, but her strength failed her. She felt a powerful and implacable hand seize her by the hair and drag her away as irrevocably as fate drags man. Thus, without even trying to offer resistance, she left the cottage.
Lord de Winter, d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis left after her. The valets followed their masters, and the room remained deserted, with its broken window, its open door, and its smoky lamp burning sadly on the table.
LXVI
THE EXECUTION
It was approaching midnight. The moon, cut away by its waning and bloodied by the last traces of the storm, rose behind the little village of Armentières, which stood out against its pale light with the dark silhouette of its houses and the skeleton of its tall openwork belfry. Opposite, the Lys rolled its waters like a river of molten pewter, while on the far bank one could see the black mass of trees profiled against a stormy sky invaded by dense, coppery clouds that made a sort of twilight in the middle of the night. To the left rose an old abandoned mill with motionless sails, in the ruins of which a screech owl uttered its sharp, recurrent, and monotonous cry. Here and there on the plain, to right and left of the path followed by the lugubrious procession, a few low and thickset trees appeared, looking like misshapen dwarfs crouching in wait for men at that sinister hour.
From time to time a big flash of lightning opened the horizon out in all its breadth, snaked over the black mass of trees, and came like a frightful scimitar to cut the sky and water in two. Not a breath of wind stirred in the heavy atmosphere. A deathly silence weighed upon all of nature. The ground was wet and slippery from the recent rain, and the revived grasses gave off their scent more energetically.
Two valets dragged Milady, each holding her by an arm. The executioner walked behind them, and Lord de Winter, d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis walked behind the executioner.
Planchet and Bazin brought up the rear.
The two valets brought Milady to the riverside. Her mouth was mute, but her eyes spoke with inexpressible eloquence, pleading by turns with each person she looked at.
As she found herself a few paces ahead, she said to the valets:
“A thousand pistoles for each of you if you cover my flight; but if you hand me over to your masters, I have avengers nearby who will make you pay dearly for my death.”
Grimaud hesitated. Mousqueton trembled all over.
Athos, who had heard Milady’s voice, came up quickly, as did Lord de Winter.
“Send these valets away,” he said. “She has spoken to them; they are no longer trustworthy.”
They called Planchet and Bazin, who replaced Grimaud and Mousqueton.
When they reached the water’s edge, the executioner went up to Milady and bound her hands and feet.
Then she broke her silence to cry out:
“You are cowards, you are wretched assassins, it takes ten of you to cut one woman’s throat! Watch out, for if I’m not rescued, I will be avenged.”
“You are not a woman,” Athos said coldly, “you do not belong to humankind, you are a demon escaped from hell, and we are going to send you back there.”
“Ah, the gentlemen are men of virtue!” said Milady. “Mind you that he who touches a hair of my head is an assassin in his turn.”
“An executioner may kill without for all that being an assassin, Madame,” said the man in the red cloak, tapping his broad sword. “He is the last judge, that is all—Nachrichter,* as our German neighbors say.”
And as he was binding her while saying these words, Milady uttered two or three wild cries, which made a gloomy and strange effect as they flew off into the night and lost themselves in the depths of the wood.
“But if I am guilty, if I have committed the crimes you accuse me of,” shouted Milady, “bring me before a tribunal. You are no judges to condemn me!”
“I offered you Tyburn,” said Lord de Winter.