Twenty years after
need at least ten minutes to find the hole by which he has escaped. In
those ten minutes we shall have gained the road and the king will be
saved.”
“Everything shall be done as you say, Athos. Your hand, for perhaps we
shall not see each other again.”
Athos put his arm around Aramis’s neck and embraced him.
“For you,” he said. “Now if I die, say to D’Artagnan that I love him as
a son, and embrace him for me. Embrace also our good and brave Porthos.
Adieu.”
“Adieu,” said Aramis. “I am as sure now that the king will be saved as
I am sure that I clasp the most loyal hand in the world.”
Aramis parted from Athos, went down from the scaffold in his turn and
took his way to the hotel, whistling the air of a song in praise of
Cromwell. He found the other two friends sitting at table before a good
fire, drinking a bottle of port and devouring a cold chicken. Porthos
was cursing the infamous parliamentarians; D’Artagnan ate in silence,
revolving in his mind the most audacious plans.
Aramis related what had been agreed upon. D’Artagnan approved with a
movement of the head and Porthos with his voice.
“Bravo!” he said; “besides, we shall be there at the time of the
flight. What with D’Artagnan, Grimaud and Mousqueton, we can manage to
dispatch eight of them. I say nothing about Blaisois, for he is only
fit to hold the horses. Two minutes a man makes four minutes.
Mousqueton will lose another, that’s five; and in five minutes we shall
have galloped a quarter of a league.”
Aramis swallowed a hasty mouthful, gulped a glass of wine and changed
his clothes.
“Now,” said he, “I’m off to the bishop’s. Take care of the executioner,
D’Artagnan.”
“All right. Grimaud has relieved Mousqueton and has his foot on the
cellar door.”
“Well, don’t be inactive.”
“Inactive, my dear fellow! Ask Porthos. I pass my life upon my legs.”
Aramis again presented himself at the bishop’s. Juxon consented the
more readily to take him with him, as he would require an assistant
priest in case the king should wish to communicate. Dressed as Aramis
had been the night before, the bishop got into his carriage, and the
former, more disguised by his pallor and sad countenance than his
deacon’s dress, got in by his side. The carriage stopped at the door of
the palace.
It was about nine o’clock in the morning.
Nothing was changed. The ante-rooms were still full of soldiers, the
passages still lined by guards. The king was already sanguine, but when
he perceived Aramis his hope turned to joy. He embraced Juxon and
pressed the hand of Aramis. The bishop affected to speak in a loud
voice, before every one, of their previous interview. The king replied
that the words spoken in that interview had borne their fruit, and that
he desired another under the same conditions. Juxon turned to those
present and begged them to leave him and his assistant alone with the
king. Every one withdrew. As soon as the door was closed:
“Sire,” said Aramis, speaking rapidly, “you are saved; the London
executioner has vanished. His assistant broke his leg last night
beneath your majesty’s window—the cry we heard was his—and there is no
executioner nearer at hand than Bristol.”
“But the Comte de la Fère?” asked the king.
“Two feet below you; take the poker from the fireplace and strike three
times on the floor. He will answer you.”
The king did so, and the moment after, three muffled knocks, answering
the given signal, sounded beneath the floor.
“So,” said Charles, “he who knocks down there——”
“Is the Comte de la Fère, sire,” said Aramis. “He is preparing a way
for your majesty to escape. Parry, for his part, will raise this slab
of marble and a passage will be opened.”
“Oh, Juxon,” said the king, seizing the bishop’s two hands in his own,
“promise that you will pray all your life for this gentleman and for
the other that you hear beneath your feet, and for two others also,
who, wherever they may be, are on the watch for my safety.”
“Sire,” replied Juxon, “you shall be obeyed.”
Meanwhile, the miner underneath was heard working away incessantly,
when suddenly an unexpected noise resounded in the passage. Aramis
seized the poker and gave the signal to stop; the noise came nearer and
nearer. It was that of a number of men steadily approaching. The four
men stood motionless. All eyes were fixed on the door, which opened
slowly and with a kind of solemnity.
A parliamentary officer, clothed in black and with a gravity that
augured ill, entered, bowed to the king, and unfolding a parchment,
read the sentence, as is usually done to criminals before their
execution.
“What is this?” said Aramis to Juxon.
Juxon replied with a sign which meant that he knew no more than Aramis
about it.
“Then it is for to-day?” asked the king.
“Was not your majesty warned that it was to take place this morning?”
“Then I must die like a common criminal by the hand of the London
executioner?”
“The London executioner has disappeared, your majesty, but a man has
offered his services instead. The execution will therefore only be
delayed long enough for you to arrange your spiritual and temporal
affairs.”
A slight moisture on his brow was the only trace of emotion that
Charles evinced, as he learned these tidings. But Aramis was livid. His
heart ceased beating, he closed his eyes and leaned upon the table.
Charles perceived it and took his hand.
“Come, my friend,” said he, “courage.” Then he turned to the officer.
“Sir, I am ready. There is but little reason why I should delay you.
Firstly, I wish to communicate; secondly, to embrace my children and
bid them farewell for the last time. Will this be permitted me?”
“Certainly,” replied the officer, and left the room.
Aramis dug his nails into his flesh and groaned aloud.
“Oh! my lord bishop,” he cried, seizing Juxon’s hands, “where is
Providence? where is Providence?”
“My son,” replied the bishop, with firmness, “you see Him not, because
the passions of the world conceal Him.”
“My son,” said the king to Aramis, “do not take it so to heart. You ask
what God is doing. God beholds your devotion and my martyrdom, and
believe me, both will have their reward. Ascribe to men, then, what is
happening, and not to God. It is men who drive me to death; it is men
who make you weep.”
“Yes, sire,” said Aramis, “yes, you are right. It is men whom I should
hold responsible, and I will hold them responsible.”
“Be seated, Juxon,” said the king, falling upon his knees. “I have now
to confess to you. Remain, sir,” he added to Aramis, who had moved to
leave the room. “Remain, Parry. I have nothing to say that cannot be
said before all.”
Juxon sat down, and the king, kneeling humbly before him, began his
confession.
Chapter LXVI.
Remember!
The mob had already assembled when the confession terminated. The
king’s children next arrived—the Princess Charlotte, a beautiful,
fair-haired child, with tears in her eyes, and the Duke of Gloucester,
a boy eight or nine years old, whose tearless eyes and curling lip
revealed a growing pride. He had wept all night long, but would not
show his grief before the people.
Charles’s heart melted within him at the sight of those two children,
whom he had not seen for two years and whom he now met at the moment of
death. He turned to brush away a tear, and then, summoning up all his
firmness, drew his daughter toward him, recommending her to be pious
and resigned. Then he took the boy upon his knee.
“My son,” he said to him, “you saw a great number of people in the
streets as you came here. These men are going to behead your father. Do
not forget that. Perhaps some day they will want to make you king,
instead of the Prince of Wales, or the Duke of York, your elder
brothers. But you are not the king, my son, and can never be so while
they are alive. Swear to me, then, never to let them put a crown upon
your head unless you have a legal right to the crown. For one
day—listen, my son—one day, if you do so, they will doom you to
destruction, head and crown, too, and then you will not be able to die
with a calm conscience, as I die. Swear, my son.”
The child stretched out his little hand toward that of his father and
said, “I swear to your majesty.”
“Henry,” said Charles, “call me your father.”
“Father,” replied the child, “I swear to you that they shall kill me
sooner than make me king.”
“Good, my child. Now kiss me; and you, too, Charlotte. Never forget
me.”
“Oh! never, never!” cried both the children, throwing their arms around
their father’s neck.
“Farewell,” said Charles, “farewell, my children. Take them away,
Juxon; their tears will deprive me of the courage to die.”
Juxon led them away, and this time the doors were left open.
Meanwhile, Athos, in his concealment, waited in vain the signal to
recommence his work. Two long hours he waited in terrible inaction. A
deathlike silence reigned in the room above. At last he determined to
discover the cause of this stillness. He crept from his hole and stood,
hidden by the black drapery, beneath the scaffold. Peeping out from the
drapery, he could see the rows of halberdiers and musketeers around the
scaffold and the first ranks of the populace swaying and groaning like
the sea.
“What is the matter, then?” he asked himself, trembling more than the
wind-swayed cloth he was holding back. “The people are hurrying on, the
soldiers under arms, and among the spectators I see D’Artagnan. What is
he waiting for? What is he looking at? Good God! have they allowed the
headsman to escape?”
Suddenly the dull beating of muffled drums filled the square. The sound
of heavy steps was heard above his head. The next moment the very
planks of the scaffold creaked with the weight of an advancing
procession, and the eager faces of the spectators confirmed what a last
hope at the bottom of his heart had prevented him till then believing.
At the same moment a well-known voice above him pronounced these words:
“Colonel, I want to speak to the people.”
Athos shuddered from head to foot. It was the king speaking on the
scaffold.
In fact, after taking a few drops of wine and a piece of bread,
Charles, weary of waiting for death, had suddenly decided to go to meet
it and had given the signal for movement. Then the two wings of the
window facing the square had been thrown open, and the people had seen
silently advancing from the interior of the vast chamber, first, a
masked man, who, carrying an axe in his hand, was recognized as the
executioner. He approached the block and laid his axe upon it. Behind
him, pale indeed, but marching with a firm step, was Charles Stuart,
who advanced between two priests, followed by a few superior officers
appointed to preside at the execution and attended by two files of
partisans who took their places on opposite sides of the scaffold.
The sight of the masked man gave rise to a prolonged sensation. Every
one was full of curiosity as to who that unknown executioner could be
who presented himself so opportunely to assure to the people the
promised spectacle, when the people believed it had been postponed
until the following day. All gazed at him searchingly.
But they could discern nothing but a man of middle height, dressed in
black, apparently of a certain age, for the end of a gray beard peeped
out from the bottom of the mask that hid his features.
The king’s request had undoubtedly been acceded to by an affirmative
sign, for in firm, sonorous accents, which vibrated in the depths of
Athos’s heart, the king began his speech, explaining his conduct and
counseling the welfare of the kingdom.
“Oh!” said Athos to himself, “is it indeed possible that I hear what I
hear and that I see what I see? Is it possible that God has abandoned