Twenty years after
“One minute,” said the young man. “Give me your word, gentlemen, that
you will not attack me otherwise than one after the other.”
“Is it to have the pleasure of insulting us that you say that, my
little viper?”
“No, but to set my mind at rest, as you observed just now.”
“It is for something else than that, I imagine,” muttered D’Artagnan,
shaking his head doubtfully.
“On the honor of gentlemen,” said Aramis and Porthos.
“In that case, gentlemen, have the kindness to retire into the corners,
so as to give us ample room. We shall require it.”
“Yes, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “we must not leave this person the
slightest pretext for behaving badly, which, with all due respect, I
fancy he is anxious still to do.”
This new attack made no impression on Mordaunt. The space was cleared,
the two lamps placed on Cromwell’s desk, in order that the combatants
might have as much light as possible; and the swords crossed.
D’Artagnan was too good a swordsman to trifle with his opponent. He
made a rapid and brilliant feint which Mordaunt parried.
“Aha!” he cried with a smile of satisfaction.
And without losing a minute, thinking he saw an opening, he thrust his
right in and forced Mordaunt to parry a counter _en quarte_ so fine
that the point of the weapon might have turned within a wedding ring.
This time it was Mordaunt who smiled.
“Ah, sir,” said D’Artagnan, “you have a wicked smile. It must have been
the devil who taught it you, was it not?”
Mordaunt replied by trying his opponent’s weapon with an amount of
strength which the Gascon was astonished to find in a form apparently
so feeble; but thanks to a parry no less clever than that which
Mordaunt had just achieved, he succeeded in meeting his sword, which
slid along his own without touching his chest.
Mordaunt rapidly sprang back a step.
“Ah! you lose ground, you are turning? Well, as you please, I even gain
something by it, for I no longer see that wicked smile of yours. You
have no idea what a false look you have, particularly when you are
afraid. Look at my eyes and you will see what no looking-glass has ever
shown you—a frank and honorable countenance.”
To this flow of words, not perhaps in the best taste, but
characteristic of D’Artagnan, whose principal object was to divert his
opponent’s attention, Mordaunt did not reply, but continuing to turn
around he succeeded in changing places with D’Artagnan.
He smiled more and more sarcastically and his smile began to make the
Gascon anxious.
“Come, come,” cried D’Artagnan, “we must finish with this,” and in his
turn he pressed Mordaunt hard, who continued to lose ground, but
evidently on purpose and without letting his sword leave the line for a
moment. However, as they were fighting in a room and had not space to
go on like that forever, Mordaunt’s foot at last touched the wall,
against which he rested his left hand.
“Ah, this time you cannot lose ground, my fine friend!” exclaimed
D’Artagnan. “Gentlemen, did you ever see a scorpion pinned to a wall?
No. Well, then, you shall see it now.”
In a second D’Artagnan had made three terrible thrusts at Mordaunt, all
of which touched, but only pricked him. The three friends looked on,
panting and astonished. At last D’Artagnan, having got up too close,
stepped back to prepare a fourth thrust, but the moment when, after a
fine, quick feint, he was attacking as sharply as lightning, the wall
seemed to give way, Mordaunt disappeared through the opening, and
D’Artagnan’s blade, caught between the panels, shivered like a sword of
glass. D’Artagnan sprang back; the wall had closed again.
Mordaunt, in fact, while defending himself, had manœuvred so as to
reach the secret door by which Cromwell had left, had felt for the knob
with his left hand, pressed it and disappeared.
The Gascon uttered a furious imprecation, which was answered by a wild
laugh on the other side of the iron panel.
“Help me, gentlemen,” cried D’Artagnan, “we must break in this door.”
“It is the devil in person!” said Aramis, hastening forward.
“He escapes us,” growled Porthos, pushing his huge shoulder against the
hinges, but in vain. “‘Sblood! he escapes us.”
“So much the better,” muttered Athos.
“I thought as much,” said D’Artagnan, wasting his strength in useless
efforts. “Zounds, I thought as much when the wretch kept moving around
the room. I thought he was up to something.”
“It’s a misfortune, to which his friend, the devil, treats us,” said
Aramis.
“It’s a piece of good fortune sent from Heaven,” said Athos, evidently
much relieved.
“Really!” said D’Artagnan, abandoning the attempt to burst open the
panel after several ineffectual attempts, “Athos, I cannot imagine how
you can talk to us in that way. You cannot understand the position we
are in. In this kind of game, not to kill is to let one’s self be
killed. This fox of a fellow will be sending us a hundred iron-sided
beasts who will pick us off like sparrows in this place. Come, come, we
must be off. If we stay here five minutes more there’s an end of us.”
“Yes, you are right.”
“But where shall we go?” asked Porthos.
“To the hotel, to be sure, to get our baggage and horses; and from
there, if it please God, to France, where, at least, I understand the
architecture of the houses.”
So, suiting the action to the word, D’Artagnan thrust the remnant of
his sword into its scabbard, picked up his hat and ran down the stairs,
followed by the others.
Chapter LXX.
The Skiff “Lightning.”
D’Artagnan had judged correctly; Mordaunt felt that he had no time to
lose, and he lost none. He knew the rapidity of decision and action
that characterized his enemies and resolved to act with reference to
that. This time the musketeers had an adversary who was worthy of them.
After closing the door carefully behind him Mordaunt glided into the
subterranean passage, sheathing on the way his now useless sword, and
thus reached the neighboring house, where he paused to examine himself
and to take breath.
“Good!” he said, “nothing, almost nothing—scratches, nothing more; two
in the arm and one in the breast. The wounds that I make are better
than that—witness the executioner of Bethune, my uncle and King
Charles. Now, not a second to lose, for a second lost will perhaps save
them. They must die—die all together—killed at one stroke by the
thunder of men in default of God’s. They must disappear, broken,
scattered, annihilated. I will run, then, till my legs no longer serve,
till my heart bursts in my bosom but I will arrive before they do.”
Mordaunt proceeded at a rapid pace to the nearest cavalry barracks,
about a quarter of a league distant. He made that quarter of a league
in four or five minutes. Arrived at the barracks he made himself known,
took the best horse in the stables, mounted and gained the high road. A
quarter of an hour later he was at Greenwich.
“There is the port,” he murmured. “That dark point yonder is the Isle
of Dogs. Good! I am half an hour in advance of them, an hour, perhaps.
Fool that I was! I have almost killed myself by my needless haste.
Now,” he added, rising in the stirrups and looking about him, “which, I
wonder, is the _Lightning?_”
At this moment, as if in reply to his words, a man lying on a coil of
cables rose and advanced a few steps toward him. Mordaunt drew a
handkerchief from his pocket, and tying a knot at each corner—the
signal agreed upon—waved it in the air and the man came up to him. He
was wrapped in a large rough cape, which concealed his form and partly
his face.
“Do you wish to go on the water, sir?” said the sailor.
“Yes, just so. Along the Isle of Dogs.”
“And perhaps you have a preference for one boat more than another. You
would like one that sails as rapidly as——”
“Lightning,” interrupted Mordaunt.
“Then mine is the boat you want, sir. I’m your man.”
“I begin to think so, particularly if you have not forgotten a certain
signal.”
“Here it is, sir,” and the sailor took from his coat a handkerchief,
tied at each corner.
“Good, quite right!” cried Mordaunt, springing off his horse. “There’s
not a moment to lose; now take my horse to the nearest inn and conduct
me to your vessel.”
“But,” asked the sailor, “where are your companions? I thought there
were four of you.”
“Listen to me, sir. I’m not the man you take me for; you are in Captain
Rogers’s post, are you not? under orders from General Cromwell. Mine,
also, are from him!”
“Indeed, sir, I recognize you; you are Captain Mordaunt.”
Mordaunt was startled.
“Oh, fear nothing,” said the skipper, showing his face. “I am a
friend.”
“Captain Groslow!” cried Mordaunt.
“Himself. The general remembered that I had formerly been a naval
officer and he gave me the command of this expedition. Is there
anything new in the wind?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought, perhaps, that the king’s death——”
“Has only hastened their flight; in ten minutes they will perhaps be
here.”
“What have you come for, then?”
“To embark with you.”
“Ah! ah! the general doubted my fidelity?”
“No, but I wish to have a share in my revenge. Haven’t you some one who
will relieve me of my horse?”
Groslow whistled and a sailor appeared.
“Patrick,” said Groslow, “take this horse to the stables of the nearest
inn. If any one asks you whose it is you can say that it belongs to an
Irish gentleman.”
The sailor departed without reply.
“Now,” said Mordaunt, “are you not afraid that they will recognize
you?”
“There is no danger, dressed as I am in this pilot coat, on a night as
dark as this. Besides even you didn’t recognize me; they will be much
less likely to.”
“That is true,” said Mordaunt, “and they will be far from thinking of
you. Everything is ready, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“The cargo on board?”
“Yes.”
“Five full casks?”
“And fifty empty ones.”
“Good.”
“We are carrying port wine to Anvers.”
“Excellent. Now take me aboard and return to your post, for they will
soon be here.”
“I am ready.”
“It is important that none of your crew should see me.”
“I have but one man on board, and I am as sure of him as I am of
myself. Besides, he doesn’t know you; like his mates he is ready to
obey our orders knowing nothing of our plan.”
“Very well; let us go.”
They then went down to the Thames. A boat was fastened to the shore by
a chain fixed to a stake. Groslow jumped in, followed by Mordaunt, and
in five minutes they were quite away from that world of houses which
then crowded the outskirts of London; and Mordaunt could discern the
little vessel riding at anchor near the Isle of Dogs. When they reached
the side of this felucca, Mordaunt, dexterous in his eagerness for
vengeance, seized a rope and climbed up the side of the vessel with a
coolness and agility very rare among landsmen. He went with Groslow to
the captain’s berth, a sort of temporary cabin of planks, for the chief
apartment had been given up by Captain Rogers to the passengers, who
were to be accommodated at the other end of the boat.
“They will have nothing to do, then at this end?” said Mordaunt.
“Nothing at all.”
“That’s a capital arrangement. Return to Greenwich and bring them here.
I shall hide myself in your cabin. You have a longboat?”
“That in which we came.”
“It appeared light and well constructed.”
“Quite a canoe.”
“Fasten it to the poop with a rope; put the oars into it, so that it
may follow in the track and there will be nothing to do except to cut
the cord. Put a good supply of rum and biscuit in it for the seamen;
should the night happen to be stormy they will not be sorry to find
something to console themselves with.”
“Consider all this done. Do you wish to see the powder-room?”
“No. When you return I will set the fuse myself, but be careful to