Twenty years after
suppose you have no more money and that they will be welcome.”
“I have still twenty pistoles, sir.”
“Well, take them; that makes seventy.”
“And if you wish for more,” said Porthos, putting his hand to his
pocket——
“Thank you, sir,” replied Raoul, blushing; “thank you a thousand
times.”
At this moment Olivain appeared. “Apropos,” said D’Artagnan, loud
enough for the servant to hear him, “are you satisfied with Olivain?”
“Yes, in some respects, tolerably well.”
Olivain pretended to have heard nothing and entered the tent.
“What fault do you find with the fellow?”
“He is a glutton.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Olivain, reappearing at this accusation.
“And a little bit of a thief.”
“Oh, sir! oh!”
“And, more especially, a notorious coward.”
“Oh, oh! sir! you really vilify me!” cried Olivain.
“The deuce!” cried D’Artagnan. “Pray learn, Monsieur Olivain, that
people like us are not to be served by cowards. Rob your master, eat
his sweetmeats, and drink his wine; but, by Jove! don’t be a coward, or
I shall cut off your ears. Look at Monsieur Mouston, see the honorable
wounds he has received, observe how his habitual valor has given
dignity to his countenance.”
Mousqueton was in the third heaven and would have embraced D’Artagnan
had he dared; meanwhile he resolved to sacrifice his life for him on
the next occasion that presented itself.
“Send away that fellow, Raoul,” said the Gascon; “for if he’s a coward
he will disgrace thee some day.”
“Monsieur says I am coward,” cried Olivain, “because he wanted the
other day to fight a cornet in Grammont’s regiment and I refused to
accompany him.”
“Monsieur Olivain, a lackey ought never to disobey,” said D’Artagnan,
sternly; then taking him aside, he whispered to him: “Thou hast done
right; thy master was in the wrong; here’s a crown for thee, but should
he ever be insulted and thou dost not let thyself be cut in quarters
for him, I will cut out thy tongue. Remember that.”
Olivain bowed and slipped the crown into his pocket.
“And now, Raoul,” said the Gascon, “Monsieur du Vallon and I are going
away as ambassadors, where, I know not; but should you want anything,
write to Madame Turquaine, at La Chevrette, Rue Tiquetonne and draw
upon her purse as on a banker—with economy; for it is not so well
filled as that of Monsieur d’Emery.”
And having, meantime, embraced his ward, he passed him into the robust
arms of Porthos, who lifted him up from the ground and held him a
moment suspended near the noble heart of the formidable giant.
“Come,” said D’Artagnan, “let us go.”
And they set out for Boulogne, where toward evening they arrived, their
horses flecked with foam and dark with perspiration.
At ten steps from the place where they halted was a young man in black,
who seemed waiting for some one, and who, from the moment he saw them
enter the town, never took his eyes off them.
D’Artagnan approached him, and seeing him stare so fixedly, said:
“Well, friend! I don’t like people to quiz me!”
“Sir,” said the young man, “do you not come from Paris, if you please?”
D’Artagnan thought it was some gossip who wanted news from the capital.
“Yes, sir,” he said, in a softened tone.
“Are you not going to put up at the ‘Arms of England’?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you not charged with a mission from his eminence, Cardinal
Mazarin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In that case, I am the man you have to do with. I am M. Mordaunt.”
“Ah!” thought D’Artagnan, “the man I am warned against by Athos.”
“Ah!” thought Porthos, “the man Aramis wants me to strangle.”
They both looked searchingly at the young man, who misunderstood the
meaning of that inquisition.
“Do you doubt my word?” he said. “In that case I can give you proofs.”
“No, sir,” said D’Artagnan; “and we place ourselves at your orders.”
“Well, gentlemen,” resumed Mordaunt, “we must set out without delay,
to-day is the last day granted me by the cardinal. My ship is ready,
and had you not come I must have set off without you, for General
Cromwell expects my return impatiently.”
“So!” thought the lieutenant, “’tis to General Cromwell that our
dispatches are addressed.”
“Have you no letter for him?” asked the young man.
“I have one, the seal of which I am not to break till I reach London;
but since you tell me to whom it is addressed, ’tis useless to wait
till then.”
D’Artagnan tore open the envelope of the letter. It was directed to
“Monsieur Oliver Cromwell, General of the Army of the English Nation.”
“Ah!” said D’Artagnan; “a singular commission.”
“Who is this Monsieur Oliver Cromwell?” inquired Porthos.
“Formerly a brewer,” replied the Gascon.
“Perhaps Mazarin wishes to make a speculation in beer, as we did in
straw,” said Porthos.
“Come, come, gentlemen,” said Mordaunt, impatiently, “let us depart.”
“What!” exclaimed Porthos “without supper? Cannot Monsieur Cromwell
wait a little?”
“Yes, but I?” said Mordaunt.
“Well, you,” said Porthos, “what then?”
“I cannot wait.”
“Oh! as to you, that is not my concern, and I shall sup either with or
without your permission.”
The young man’s eyes kindled in secret, but he restrained himself.
“Monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, “you must excuse famished travelers.
Besides, our supper can’t delay you much. We will hasten on to the inn;
you will meanwhile proceed on foot to the harbor. We will take a bite
and shall be there as soon as you are.”
“Just as you please, gentlemen, provided we set sail,” he said.
“The name of your ship?” inquired D’Artagnan.
“The _Standard_.”
“Very well; in half an hour we shall be on board.”
And the friends, spurring on their horses, rode to the hotel, the “Arms
of England.”
“What do you say of that young man?” asked D’Artagnan, as they hurried
along.
“I say that he doesn’t suit me at all,” said Porthos, “and that I feel
a strong itching to follow Aramis’s advice.”
“By no means, my dear Porthos; that man is a messenger of General
Cromwell; it would insure for us a poor reception, I imagine, should it
be announced to him that we had twisted the neck of his confidant.”
“Nevertheless,” said Porthos, “I have always noticed that Aramis gives
good advice.”
“Listen,” returned D’Artagnan, “when our embassy is finished——”
“Well?”
“If it brings us back to France——”
“Well?”
“Well, we shall see.”
At that moment the two friends reached the hotel, “Arms of England,”
where they supped with hearty appetite and then at once proceeded to
the port.
There they found a brig ready to set sail, upon the deck of which they
recognized Mordaunt walking up and down impatiently.
“It is singular,” said D’Artagnan, whilst the boat was taking them to
the _Standard_, “it is astonishing how that young man resembles some
one I must have known, but who it was I cannot yet remember.”
A few minutes later they were on board, but the embarkation of the
horses was a longer matter than that of the men, and it was eight
o’clock before they raised anchor.
The young man stamped impatiently and ordered all sail to be spread.
Porthos, completely used up by three nights without sleep and a journey
of seventy leagues on horseback, retired to his cabin and went to
sleep.
D’Artagnan, overcoming his repugnance to Mordaunt, walked with him upon
the deck and invented a hundred stories to make him talk.
Mousqueton was seasick.
Chapter LV.
The Scotchman.
And now our readers must leave the _Standard_ to sail peaceably, not
toward London, where D’Artagnan and Porthos believed they were going,
but to Durham, whither Mordaunt had been ordered to repair by the
letter he had received during his sojourn at Boulogne, and accompany us
to the royalist camp, on this side of the Tyne, near Newcastle.
There, placed between two rivers on the borders of Scotland, but still
on English soil, the tents of a little army extended. It was midnight.
Some Highlanders were listlessly keeping watch. The moon, which was
partially obscured by heavy clouds, now and then lit up the muskets of
the sentinels, or silvered the walls, the roofs, and the spires of the
town that Charles I. had just surrendered to the parliamentary troops,
whilst Oxford and Newark still held out for him in the hopes of coming
to some arrangement.
At one of the extremities of the camp, near an immense tent, in which
the Scottish officers were holding a kind of council, presided over by
Lord Leven, their commander, a man attired as a cavalier lay sleeping
on the turf, his right hand extended over his sword.
About fifty paces off, another man, also appareled as a cavalier, was
talking to a Scotch sentinel, and, though a foreigner, he seemed to
understand without much difficulty the answers given in the broad
Perthshire dialect.
As the town clock of Newcastle struck one the sleeper awoke, and with
all the gestures of a man rousing himself out of deep sleep he looked
attentively about him; perceiving that he was alone he rose and making
a little circuit passed close to the cavalier who was speaking to the
sentinel. The former had no doubt finished his questions, for a moment
later he said good-night and carelessly followed the same path taken by
the first cavalier.
In the shadow of a tent the former was awaiting him.
“Well, my dear friend?” said he, in as pure French as has ever been
uttered between Rouen and Tours.
“Well, my friend, there is not a moment to lose; we must let the king
know immediately.”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“It would take too long to tell you, besides, you will hear it all
directly and the least word dropped here might ruin all. We must go and
find Lord Winter.”
They both set off to the other end of the camp, but as it did not cover
more than a surface of five hundred feet they quickly arrived at the
tent they were looking for.
“Tony, is your master sleeping?” said one of the two cavaliers to a
servant who was lying in the outer compartment, which served as a kind
of ante-room.
“No, monsieur le comte,” answered the servant, “I think not; or at
least he has not long been so, for he was pacing up and down for more
than two hours after he left the king, and the sound of his footsteps
has only ceased during the last ten minutes. However, you may look and
see,” added the lackey, raising the curtained entrance of the tent.
Lord Winter was seated near an aperture, arranged as a window to let in
the night air, his eyes mechanically following the course of the moon,
intermittently veiled, as we before observed, by heavy clouds. The two
friends approached Winter, who, with his head on his hands, was gazing
at the heavens; he did not hear them enter and remained in the same
attitude till he felt a hand upon his shoulder.
He turned around, recognized Athos and Aramis and held out his hand to
them.
“Have you observed,” said he to them, “what a blood-red color the moon
has to-night?”
“No,” replied Athos; “I thought it looked much the same as usual.”
“Look, again, chevalier,” returned Lord Winter.
“I must own,” said Aramis, “I am like the Comte de la Fère—I can see
nothing remarkable about it.”
“My lord,” said Athos, “in a position so precarious as ours we must
examine the earth and not the heavens. Have you studied our Scotch
troops and have you confidence in them?”
“The Scotch?” inquired Winter. “What Scotch?”
“Ours, egad!” exclaimed Athos. “Those in whom the king has
confided—Lord Leven’s Highlanders.”
“No,” said Winter, then he paused; “but tell me, can you not perceive
the russet tint which marks the heavens?”
“Not the least in the world,” said Aramis and Athos at once.
“Tell me,” continued Winter, always possessed by the same idea, “is
there not a tradition in France that Henry IV., the evening before the