The three musketeers
shoulder of Milady, which he almost touched with his finger.
Milady uttered a deep, inward shriek, and retreated to a corner of the
room like a panther which crouches for a spring.
“Oh, growl as much as you please,” cried Lord de Winter, “but don’t try
to bite, for I warn you that it would be to your disadvantage. There
are here no procurators who regulate successions beforehand. There is
no knight-errant to come and seek a quarrel with me on account of the
fair lady I detain a prisoner; but I have judges quite ready who will
quickly dispose of a woman so shameless as to glide, a bigamist, into
the bed of Lord de Winter, my brother. And these judges, I warn you,
will soon send you to an executioner who will make both your shoulders
alike.”
The eyes of Milady darted such flashes that although he was a man and
armed before an unarmed woman, he felt the chill of fear glide through
his whole frame. However, he continued all the same, but with
increasing warmth: “Yes, I can very well understand that after having
inherited the fortune of my brother it would be very agreeable to you
to be my heir likewise; but know beforehand, if you kill me or cause me
to be killed, my precautions are taken. Not a penny of what I possess
will pass into your hands. Were you not already rich enough—you who
possess nearly a million? And could you not stop your fatal career, if
you did not do evil for the infinite and supreme joy of doing it? Oh,
be assured, if the memory of my brother were not sacred to me, you
should rot in a state dungeon or satisfy the curiosity of sailors at
Tyburn. I will be silent, but you must endure your captivity quietly.
In fifteen or twenty days I shall set out for La Rochelle with the
army; but on the eve of my departure a vessel which I shall see depart
will take you hence and convey you to our colonies in the south. And be
assured that you shall be accompanied by one who will blow your brains
out at the first attempt you make to return to England or the
Continent.”
Milady listened with an attention that dilated her inflamed eyes.
“Yes, at present,” continued Lord de Winter, “you will remain in this
castle. The walls are thick, the doors strong, and the bars solid;
besides, your window opens immediately over the sea. The men of my
crew, who are devoted to me for life and death, mount guard around this
apartment, and watch all the passages that lead to the courtyard. Even
if you gained the yard, there would still be three iron gates for you
to pass. The order is positive. A step, a gesture, a word, on your
part, denoting an effort to escape, and you are to be fired upon. If
they kill you, English justice will be under an obligation to me for
having saved it trouble. Ah! I see your features regain their calmness,
your countenance recovers its assurance. You are saying to yourself:
‘Fifteen days, twenty days? Bah! I have an inventive mind; before that
is expired some idea will occur to me. I have an infernal spirit. I
shall meet with a victim. Before fifteen days are gone by I shall be
away from here.’ Ah, try it!”
Milady, finding her thoughts betrayed, dug her nails into her flesh to
subdue every emotion that might give to her face any expression except
agony.
Lord de Winter continued: “The officer who commands here in my absence
you have already seen, and therefore know him. He knows how, as you
must have observed, to obey an order—for you did not, I am sure, come
from Portsmouth hither without endeavoring to make him speak. What do
you say of him? Could a statue of marble have been more impassive and
more mute? You have already tried the power of your seductions upon
many men, and unfortunately you have always succeeded; but I give you
leave to try them upon this one. _Pardieu!_ if you succeed with him, I
pronounce you the demon himself.”
He went toward the door and opened it hastily.
“Call Mr. Felton,” said he. “Wait a minute longer, and I will introduce
him to you.”
There followed between these two personages a strange silence, during
which the sound of a slow and regular step was heard approaching.
Shortly a human form appeared in the shade of the corridor, and the
young lieutenant, with whom we are already acquainted, stopped at the
threshold to receive the orders of the baron.
“Come in, my dear John,” said Lord de Winter, “come in, and shut the
door.”
The young officer entered.
“Now,” said the baron, “look at this woman. She is young; she is
beautiful; she possesses all earthly seductions. Well, she is a
monster, who, at twenty-five years of age, has been guilty of as many
crimes as you could read of in a year in the archives of our tribunals.
Her voice prejudices her hearers in her favor; her beauty serves as a
bait to her victims; her body even pays what she promises—I must do her
that justice. She will try to seduce you, perhaps she will try to kill
you. I have extricated you from misery, Felton; I have caused you to be
named lieutenant; I once saved your life, you know on what occasion. I
am for you not only a protector, but a friend; not only a benefactor,
but a father. This woman has come back again into England for the
purpose of conspiring against my life. I hold this serpent in my hands.
Well, I call you, and say to you: Friend Felton, John, my child, guard
me, and more particularly guard yourself, against this woman. Swear, by
your hopes of salvation, to keep her safely for the chastisement she
has merited. John Felton, I trust your word! John Felton, I put faith
in your loyalty!”
“My Lord,” said the young officer, summoning to his mild countenance
all the hatred he could find in his heart, “my Lord, I swear all shall
be done as you desire.”
Milady received this look like a resigned victim; it was impossible to
imagine a more submissive or a more mild expression than that which
prevailed on her beautiful countenance. Lord de Winter himself could
scarcely recognize the tigress who, a minute before, prepared
apparently for a fight.
“She is not to leave this chamber, understand, John,” continued the
baron. “She is to correspond with nobody; she is to speak to no one but
you—if you will do her the honor to address a word to her.”
“That is sufficient, my Lord! I have sworn.”
“And now, madame, try to make your peace with God, for you are judged
by men!”
Milady let her head sink, as if crushed by this sentence. Lord de
Winter went out, making a sign to Felton, who followed him, shutting
the door after him.
One instant after, the heavy step of a marine who served as sentinel
was heard in the corridor—his ax in his girdle and his musket on his
shoulder.
Milady remained for some minutes in the same position, for she thought
they might perhaps be examining her through the keyhole; she then
slowly raised her head, which had resumed its formidable expression of
menace and defiance, ran to the door to listen, looked out of her
window, and returning to bury herself again in her large armchair, she
reflected.
Chapter LI.
OFFICER
Meanwhile, the cardinal looked anxiously for news from England; but no
news arrived that was not annoying and threatening.
Although La Rochelle was invested, however certain success might
appear—thanks to the precautions taken, and above all to the dyke,
which prevented the entrance of any vessel into the besieged city—the
blockade might last a long time yet. This was a great affront to the
king’s army, and a great inconvenience to the cardinal, who had no
longer, it is true, to embroil Louis XIII. with Anne of Austria—for that
affair was over—but he had to adjust matters for M. de Bassompierre,
who was embroiled with the Duc d’Angoulême.
As to Monsieur, who had begun the siege, he left to the cardinal the
task of finishing it.
The city, notwithstanding the incredible perseverance of its mayor, had
attempted a sort of mutiny for a surrender; the mayor had hanged the
mutineers. This execution quieted the ill-disposed, who resolved to
allow themselves to die of hunger—this death always appearing to them
more slow and less sure than strangulation.
On their side, from time to time, the besiegers took the messengers
which the Rochellais sent to Buckingham, or the spies which Buckingham
sent to the Rochellais. In one case or the other, the trial was soon
over. The cardinal pronounced the single word, “Hanged!” The king was
invited to come and see the hanging. He came languidly, placing himself
in a good situation to see all the details. This amused him sometimes a
little, and made him endure the siege with patience; but it did not
prevent his getting very tired, or from talking at every moment of
returning to Paris—so that if the messengers and the spies had failed,
his Eminence, notwithstanding all his inventiveness, would have found
himself much embarrassed.
Nevertheless, time passed on, and the Rochellais did not surrender. The
last spy that was taken was the bearer of a letter. This letter told
Buckingham that the city was at an extremity; but instead of adding,
“If your succor does not arrive within fifteen days, we will
surrender,” it added, quite simply, “If your succor comes not within
fifteen days, we shall all be dead with hunger when it comes.”
The Rochellais, then, had no hope but in Buckingham. Buckingham was
their Messiah. It was evident that if they one day learned positively
that they must not count on Buckingham, their courage would fail with
their hope.
The cardinal looked, then, with great impatience for the news from
England which would announce to him that Buckingham would not come.
The question of carrying the city by assault, though often debated in
the council of the king, had been always rejected. In the first place,
La Rochelle appeared impregnable. Then the cardinal, whatever he said,
very well knew that the horror of bloodshed in this encounter, in which
Frenchman would combat against Frenchman, was a retrograde movement of
sixty years impressed upon his policy; and the cardinal was at that
period what we now call a man of progress. In fact, the sack of La
Rochelle, and the assassination of three of four thousand Huguenots who
allowed themselves to be killed, would resemble too closely, in 1628,
the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572; and then, above all this, this
extreme measure, which was not at all repugnant to the king, good
Catholic as he was, always fell before this argument of the besieging
generals—La Rochelle is impregnable except to famine.
The cardinal could not drive from his mind the fear he entertained of
his terrible emissary—for he comprehended the strange qualities of this
woman, sometimes a serpent, sometimes a lion. Had she betrayed him? Was
she dead? He knew her well enough in all cases to know that, whether
acting for or against him, as a friend or an enemy, she would not
remain motionless without great impediments; but whence did these
impediments arise? That was what he could not know.
And yet he reckoned, and with reason, on Milady. He had divined in the
past of this woman terrible things which his red mantle alone could
cover; and he felt, from one cause or another, that this woman was his
own, as she could look to no other but himself for a support superior
to the danger which threatened her.
He resolved, then, to carry on the war alone, and to look for no
success foreign to himself, but as we look for a fortunate chance. He
continued to press the raising of the famous dyke which was to starve
La Rochelle. Meanwhile, he cast his eyes over that unfortunate city,
which contained so much deep misery and so many heroic virtues, and
recalling the saying of Louis XI., his political predecessor, as he
himself was the predecessor of Robespierre, he repeated this maxim of
Tristan’s gossip: “Divide in order to reign.”