Twenty years after
Charles wiped his face and said with a sad smile: “Poor wretch, for
half a crown he would do as much to his own father.”
The king was not mistaken. Athos and his friends, again mingling with
the throng, were taking a last look at the martyr king.
When the soldier saluted Charles, Athos’s heart bounded for joy; and
that unfortunate, on coming to himself, found ten guineas that the
French gentleman had slipped into his pocket. But when the cowardly
insulter spat in the face of the captive monarch Athos grasped his
dagger. But D’Artagnan stopped his hand and in a hoarse voice cried,
“Wait!”
Athos stopped. D’Artagnan, leaning on Athos, made a sign to Porthos and
Aramis to keep near them and then placed himself behind the man with
the bare arms, who was still laughing at his own vile pleasantry and
receiving the congratulations of several others.
The man took his way toward the city. The four friends followed him.
The man, who had the appearance of being a butcher, descended a little
steep and isolated street, looking on to the river, with two of his
friends. Arrived at the bank of the river the three men perceived that
they were followed, turned around, and looking insolently at the
Frenchmen, passed some jests from one to another.
“I don’t know English, Athos,” said D’Artagnan; “but you know it and
will interpret for me.”
Then quickening their steps they passed the three men, but turned back
immediately, and D’Artagnan walked straight up to the butcher and
touching him on the chest with the tip of his finger, said to Athos:
“Say this to him in English: ‘You are a coward. You have insulted a
defenseless man. You have befouled the face of your king. You must
die.’”
Athos, pale as a ghost, repeated these words to the man, who, seeing
the bodeful preparations that were making, put himself in an attitude
of defense. Aramis, at this movement, drew his sword.
“No,” cried D’Artagnan, “no steel. Steel is for gentlemen.”
And seizing the butcher by the throat:
“Porthos,” said he, “kill this fellow for me with a single blow.”
Porthos raised his terrible fist, which whistled through the air like a
sling, and the portentous mass fell with a smothered crash on the
insulter’s skull and crushed it. The man fell like an ox beneath the
poleaxe. His companions, horror-struck, could neither move nor cry out.
“Tell them this, Athos,” resumed D’Artagnan; “thus shall all die who
forget that a captive man is sacred and that a captive king doubly
represents the Lord.”
Athos repeated D’Artagnan’s words.
The fellows looked at the body of their companion, swimming in blood,
and then recovering voice and legs together, ran screaming off.
“Justice is done,” said Porthos, wiping his forehead.
“And now,” said D’Artagnan to Athos, “entertain no further doubts about
me; I undertake all that concerns the king.”
Chapter LXIV.
Whitehall.
The parliament condemned Charles to death, as might have been foreseen.
Political judgments are generally vain formalities, for the same
passions which give rise to the accusation ordain to the condemnation.
Such is the atrocious logic of revolutions.
Although our friends were expecting that condemnation, it filled them
with grief. D’Artagnan, whose mind was never more fertile in resources
than in critical emergencies, swore again that he would try all
conceivable means to prevent the _dénouement_ of the bloody tragedy.
But by what means? As yet he could form no definite plan; all must
depend on circumstances. Meanwhile, it was necessary at all hazards, in
order to gain time, to put some obstacle in the way of the execution on
the following day—the day appointed by the judges. The only way of
doing that was to cause the disappearance of the London executioner.
The headsman out of the way, the sentence could not be executed. True,
they could send for the headsman of the nearest town, but at least a
day would be gained, and a day might be sufficient for the rescue.
D’Artagnan took upon himself that more than difficult task.
Another thing, not less essential, was to warn Charles Stuart of the
attempt to be made, so that he might assist his rescuers as much as
possible, or at least do nothing to thwart their efforts. Aramis
assumed that perilous charge. Charles Stuart had asked that Bishop
Juxon might be permitted to visit him. Mordaunt had called on the
bishop that very evening to apprise him of the religious desire
expressed by the king and also of Cromwell’s permission. Aramis
determined to obtain from the bishop, through fear or by persuasion,
consent that he should enter in the bishop’s place, and clad in his
sacerdotal robes, the prison at Whitehall.
Finally, Athos undertook to provide, in any event, the means of leaving
England—in case either of failure or of success.
The night having come they made an appointment to meet at eleven
o’clock at the hotel, and each started out to fulfill his dangerous
mission.
The palace of Whitehall was guarded by three regiments of cavalry and
by the fierce anxiety of Cromwell, who came and went or sent his
generals or his agents continually. Alone in his usual room, lighted by
two candles, the condemned monarch gazed sadly on the luxury of his
past greatness, just as at the last hour one sees the images of life
more mildly brilliant than of yore.
Parry had not quitted his master, and since his condemnation had not
ceased to weep. Charles, leaning on a table, was gazing at a medallion
of his wife and daughter; he was waiting first for Juxon, then for
martyrdom.
At times he thought of those brave French gentlemen who had appeared to
him from a distance of a hundred leagues fabulous and unreal, like the
forms that appear in dreams. In fact, he sometimes asked himself if all
that was happening to him was not a dream, or at least the delirium of
a fever. He rose and took a few steps as if to rouse himself from his
torpor and went as far as the window; he saw glittering below him the
muskets of the guards. He was thereupon constrained to admit that he
was indeed awake and that his bloody dream was real.
Charles returned in silence to his chair, rested his elbow on the
table, bowed his head upon his hand and reflected.
“Alas!” he said to himself, “if I only had for a confessor one of those
lights of the church, whose soul has sounded all the mysteries of life,
all the littlenesses of greatness, perhaps his utterance would overawe
the voice that wails within my soul. But I shall have a priest of
vulgar mind, whose career and fortune I have ruined by my misfortune.
He will speak to me of God and death, as he has spoken to many another
dying man, not understanding that this one leaves his throne to an
usurper, his children to the cold contempt of public charity.”
And he raised the medallion to his lips.
It was a dull, foggy night. A neighboring church clock slowly struck
the hour. The flickering light of the two candles showed fitful phantom
shadows in the lofty room. These were the ancestors of Charles,
standing back dimly in their tarnished frames.
An awful sadness enveloped the heart of Charles. He buried his brow in
his hands and thought of the world, so beautiful when one is about to
leave it; of the caresses of children, so pleasing and so sweet,
especially when one is parting from his children never to see them
again; then of his wife, the noble and courageous woman who had
sustained him to the last moment. He drew from his breast the diamond
cross and the star of the Garter which she had sent him by those
generous Frenchmen; he kissed it, and then, as he reflected, that she
would never again see those things till he lay cold and mutilated in
the tomb, there passed over him one of those icy shivers which may be
called forerunners of death.
Then, in that chamber which recalled to him so many royal souvenirs,
whither had come so many courtiers, the scene of so much flattering
homage, alone with a despairing servant, whose feeble soul could afford
no support to his own, the king at last yielded to sorrow, and his
courage sank to a level with that feebleness, those shadows, and that
wintry cold. That king, who was so grand, so sublime in the hour of
death, meeting his fate with a smile of resignation on his lips, now in
that gloomy hour wiped away a tear which had fallen on the table and
quivered on the gold embroidered cloth.
Suddenly the door opened, an ecclesiastic in episcopal robes entered,
followed by two guards, to whom the king waved an imperious gesture.
The guards retired; the room resumed its obscurity.
“Juxon!” cried Charles, “Juxon, thank you, my last friend; you come at
a fitting moment.”
The bishop looked anxiously at the man sobbing in the ingle-nook.
“Come, Parry,” said the king, “cease your tears.”
“If it’s Parry,” said the bishop, “I have nothing to fear; so allow me
to salute your majesty and to tell you who I am and for what I am
come.”
At this sight and this voice Charles was about to cry out, when Aramis
placed his finger on his lips and bowed low to the king of England.
“The chevalier!” murmured Charles.
“Yes, sire,” interrupted Aramis, raising his voice, “Bishop Juxon, the
faithful knight of Christ, obedient to your majesty’s wishes.”
Charles clasped his hands, amazed and stupefied to find that these
foreigners, without other motive than that which their conscience
imposed on them, thus combated the will of a people and the destiny of
a king.
“You!” he said, “you! how did you penetrate hither? If they recognize
you, you are lost.”
“Care not for me, sire; think only of yourself. You see, your friends
are wakeful. I know not what we shall do yet, but four determined men
can do much. Meanwhile, do not be surprised at anything that happens;
prepare yourself for every emergency.”
Charles shook his head.
“Do you know that I die to-morrow at ten o’clock?”
“Something, your majesty, will happen between now and then to make the
execution impossible.”
The king looked at Aramis with astonishment.
At this moment a strange noise, like the unloading of a cart, and
followed by a cry of pain, was heard beneath the window.
“Do you hear?” said the king.
“I hear,” said Aramis, “but I understand neither the noise nor the cry
of pain.”
“I know not who can have uttered the cry,” said the king, “but the
noise is easily understood. Do you know that I am to be beheaded
outside this window? Well, these boards you hear unloaded are the posts
and planks to build my scaffold. Some workmen must have fallen
underneath them and been hurt.”
Aramis shuddered in spite of himself.
“You see,” said the king, “that it is useless for you to resist. I am
condemned; leave me to my death.”
“My king,” said Aramis, “they well may raise a scaffold, but they
cannot make an executioner.”
“What do you mean?” asked the king.
“I mean that at this hour the headsman has been got out of the way by
force or persuasion. The scaffold will be ready by to-morrow, but the
headsman will be wanting and they will put it off till the day after
to-morrow.”
“What then?” said the king.
“To-morrow night we shall rescue you.”
“How can that be?” cried the king, whose face was lighted up, in spite
of himself, by a flash of joy.
“Oh! sir,” cried Parry, “may you and yours be blessed!”
“How can it be?” repeated the king. “I must know, so that I may assist
you if there is any chance.”
“I know nothing about it,” continued Aramis, “but the cleverest, the
bravest, the most devoted of us four said to me when I left him, ‘Tell
the king that to-morrow at ten o’clock at night, we shall carry him
off.’ He has said it and will do it.”
“Tell me the name of that generous friend,” said the king, “that I may
cherish for him an eternal gratitude, whether he succeeds or not.”