Twenty years after
a pistol. ‘Eh?’ said he, showing it. I held back his arm. The man in
the mask stopped before a low door and drew out a key; but before he
placed it in the lock he turned around to see if he was being followed.
Grimaud and I got behind a tree, and the Scotchman having nowhere to
hide himself, threw himself on his face in the road. Next moment the
door opened and the man disappeared.”
“The scoundrel!” said Aramis. “While you have been returning hither he
will have escaped and we shall never find him.”
“Come, now, Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “you must be taking me for some
one else.”
“Nevertheless,” said Athos, “in your absence——”
“Well, in my absence haven’t I put in my place Grimaud and the
Scotchman? Before he had taken ten steps beyond the door I had examined
the house on all sides. At one of the doors, that by which he had
entered, I placed our Scotchman, making a sign to him to follow the man
wherever he might go, if he came out again. Then going around the house
I placed Grimaud at the other exit, and here I am. Our game is beaten
up. Now for the tally-ho.”
Athos threw himself into D’Artagnan’s arms.
“Friend,” he said, “you have been too good in pardoning me; I was
wrong, a hundred times wrong. I ought to have known you better by this
time; but we are all possessed of a malignant spirit, which bids us
doubt.”
“Humph!” said Porthos. “Don’t you think the executioner might be Master
Cromwell, who, to make sure of this affair, undertook it himself?”
“Ah! just so. Cromwell is stout and short, and this man thin and lanky,
rather tall than otherwise.”
“Some condemned soldier, perhaps,” suggested Athos, “whom they have
pardoned at the price of regicide.”
“No, no,” continued D’Artagnan, “it was not the measured step of a foot
soldier, nor was it the gait of a horseman. If I am not mistaken we
have to do with a gentleman.”
“A gentleman!” exclaimed Athos. “Impossible! It would be a dishonor to
all the nobility.”
“Fine sport, by Jove!” cried Porthos, with a laugh that shook the
windows. “Fine sport!”
“Are you still bent on departure, Athos?” asked D’Artagnan.
“No, I remain,” replied Athos, with a threatening gesture that promised
no good to whomsoever it was addressed.
“Swords, then!” cried Aramis, “swords! let us not lose a moment.”
The four friends resumed their own clothes, girded on their swords,
ordered Mousqueton and Blaisois to pay the bill and to arrange
everything for immediate departure, and wrapped in their large cloaks
left in search of their game.
The night was dark, snow was falling, the streets were silent and
deserted. D’Artagnan led the way through the intricate windings and
narrow alleys of the city and ere long they had reached the house in
question. For a moment D’Artagnan thought that Parry’s brother had
disappeared; but he was mistaken. The robust Scotchman, accustomed to
the snows of his native hills, had stretched himself against a post,
and like a fallen statue, insensible to the inclemency of the weather,
had allowed the snow to cover him. He rose, however, as they
approached.
“Come,” said Athos, “here’s another good servant. Really, honest men
are not so scarce as I thought.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to weave crowns for our Scotchman. I believe the
fellow is here on his own account, for I have heard that these
gentlemen born beyond the Tweed are very vindictive. I should not like
to be Groslow, if he meets him.”
“Well?” said Athos, to the man, in English.
“No one has come out,” he replied.
“Then, Porthos and Aramis, will you remain with this man while we go
around to Grimaud?”
Grimaud had made himself a kind of sentry box out of a hollow willow,
and as they drew near he put his head out and gave a low whistle.
“Soho!” cried Athos.
“Yes,” said Grimaud.
“Well, has anybody come out?”
“No, but somebody has gone in.”
“A man or a woman?”
“A man.”
“Ah! ah!” said D’Artagnan, “there are two of them, then!”
“I wish there were four,” said Athos; “the two parties would then be
equal.”
“Perhaps there are four,” said D’Artagnan.
“What do you mean?”
“Other men may have entered before them and waited for them.”
“We can find out,” said Grimaud. At the same time he pointed to a
window, through the shutters of which a faint light streamed.
“That is true,” said D’Artagnan, “let us call the others.”
They returned around the house to fetch Porthos and Aramis.
“Have you seen anything?” they asked.
“No, but we are going to,” replied D’Artagnan, pointing to Grimaud, who
had already climbed some five or six feet from the ground.
All four came up together. Grimaud continued to climb like a cat and
succeeded at last in catching hold of a hook, which served to keep one
of the shutters back when opened. Then resting his foot on a small
ledge he made a sign to show all was right.
“Well?” asked D’Artagnan.
Grimaud showed his closed hand, with two fingers spread out.
“Speak,” said Athos; “we cannot see your signs. How many are there?”
“Two. One opposite to me, the other with his back to me.”
“Good. And the man opposite to you is——
“The man I saw go in.”
“Do you know him?”
“I thought I recognized him, and was not mistaken. Short and stout.”
“Who is it?” they all asked together in a low tone.
“General Oliver Cromwell.”
The four friends looked at one another.
“And the other?” asked Athos.
“Thin and lanky.”
“The executioner,” said D’Artagnan and Aramis at the same time.
“I can see nothing but his back,” resumed Grimaud. “But wait. He is
moving; and if he has taken off his mask I shall be able to see. Ah——”
And as if struck in the heart he let go the hook and dropped with a
groan.
“Did you see him?” they all asked.
“Yes,” said Grimaud, with his hair standing on end.
“The thin, spare man?”
“Yes.”
“The executioner, in short?” asked Aramis.
“Yes.”
“And who is it?” said Porthos.
“He—he—is——” murmured Grimaud, pale as a ghost and seizing his master’s
hand.
“Who? He?” asked Athos.
“Mordaunt,” replied Grimaud.
D’Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis uttered a cry of joy.
Athos stepped back and passed his hand across his brow.
“Fatality!” he muttered.
Chapter LXVIII.
Cromwell’s House.
It was, in fact, Mordaunt whom D’Artagnan had followed, without knowing
it. On entering the house he had taken off his mask and imitation
beard, then, mounting a staircase, had opened a door, and in a room
lighted by a single lamp found himself face to face with a man seated
behind a desk.
This man was Cromwell.
Cromwell had two or three of these retreats in London, unknown except
to the most intimate of his friends. Mordaunt was among these.
“It is you, Mordaunt,” he said. “You are late.”
“General, I wished to see the ceremony to the end, which delayed me.”
“Ah! I scarcely thought you were so curious as that.”
“I am always curious to see the downfall of your honor’s enemies, and
_he_ was not among the least of them. But you, general, were you not at
Whitehall?”
“No,” said Cromwell.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Have you had any account of it?”
“None. I have been here since the morning. I only know that there was a
conspiracy to rescue the king.”
“Ah, you knew that?” said Mordaunt.
“It matters little. Four men, disguised as workmen, were to get the
king out of prison and take him to Greenwich, where a vessel was
waiting.”
“And knowing all that, your honor remained here, far from the city,
tranquil and inactive.”
“Tranquil, yes,” replied Cromwell. “But who told you I was inactive?”
“But—if the plot had succeeded?”
“I wished it to do so.”
“I thought your excellence considered the death of Charles I. as a
misfortune necessary to the welfare of England.”
“Yes, his death; but it would have been more seemly not upon the
scaffold.”
“Why so?” asked Mordaunt.
Cromwell smiled. “Because it could have been said that I had had him
condemned for the sake of justice and had let him escape out of pity.”
“But if he had escaped?”
“Impossible; my precautions were taken.”
“And does your honor know the four men who undertook to rescue him?”
“The four Frenchmen, of whom two were sent by the queen to her husband
and two by Mazarin to me.”
“And do you think Mazarin commissioned them to act as they have done?”
“It is possible. But he will not avow it.”
“How so?”
“Because they failed.”
“Your honor gave me two of these Frenchmen when they were only guilty
of fighting for Charles I. Now that they are guilty of a conspiracy
against England will your honor give me all four of them?”
“Take them,” said Cromwell.
Mordaunt bowed with a smile of triumphant ferocity.
“Did the people shout at all?” Cromwell asked.
“Very little, except ‘Long live Cromwell!’”
“Where were you placed?”
Mordaunt tried for a moment to read in the general’s face if this was
simply a useless question, or whether he knew everything. But his
piercing eyes could by no means penetrate the sombre depths of
Cromwell’s.
“I was so situated as to hear and see _everything_,” he answered.
It was now Cromwell’s turn to look fixedly at Mordaunt, and Mordaunt to
make himself impenetrable.
“It appears,” said Cromwell, “that this improvised executioner did his
duty remarkably well. The blow, so they tell me at least, was struck
with a master’s hand.”
Mordaunt remembered that Cromwell had told him he had had no detailed
account, and he was now quite convinced that the general had been
present at the execution, hidden behind some screen or curtain.
“In fact,” said Mordaunt, with a calm voice and immovable countenance,
“a single blow sufficed.”
“Perhaps it was some one in that occupation,” said Cromwell.
“Do you think so, sir? He did not look like an executioner.”
“And who else save an executioner would have wished to fill that
horrible office?”
“But,” said Mordaunt, “it might have been some personal enemy of the
king, who had made a vow of vengeance and accomplished it in this way.
Perhaps it was some man of rank who had grave reasons for hating the
fallen king, and who, learning that the king was about to flee and
escape him, threw himself in the way, with a mask on his face and an
axe in his hand, not as substitute for the executioner, but as an
ambassador of Fate.”
“Possibly.”
“And if that were the case would your honor condemn his action?”
“It is not for me to judge. It rests between his conscience and his
God.”
“But if your honor knew this man?”
“I neither know nor wish to know him. Provided Charles is dead, it is
the axe, not the man, we must thank.”
“And yet, without the man, the king would have been rescued.”
Cromwell smiled.
“They would have carried him to Greenwich,” he said, “and put him on
board a felucca with five barrels of powder in the hold. Once out to
sea, you are too good a politician not to understand the rest,
Mordaunt.”
“Yes, they would have all been blown up.”
“Just so. The explosion would have done what the axe had failed to do.
Men would have said that the king had escaped human justice and been
overtaken by God’s. You see now why I did not care to know your
gentleman in the mask; for really, in spite of his excellent
intentions, I could not thank him for what he has done.”
Mordaunt bowed humbly. “Sir,” he said, “you are a profound thinker and
your plan was sublime.”
“Say absurd, since it has become useless. The only sublime ideas in
politics are those which bear fruit. So to-night, Mordaunt, go to
Greenwich and ask for the captain of the felucca _Lightning_. Show him
a white handkerchief knotted at the four corners and tell the crew to
disembark and carry the powder back to the arsenal, unless, indeed——”
“Unless?” said Mordaunt, whose face was lighted by a savage joy as
Cromwell spoke: