The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas [read out loud books .TXT] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
Book online «The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas [read out loud books .TXT] 📗». Author Alexandre Dumas
“I am ready, monsieur,” replied D’Artagnan, grinding his teeth.
The officer immediately ordered a canoe to receive M. d’Artagnan and himself. At sight of this he became almost distraught with rage.
“How,” stammered he, “will you carry on the directions of the different corps?”
“When you are gone, monsieur,” replied the commander of the fleet, “it is to me the command of the whole is committed.”
“Then, monsieur,” rejoined Colbert’s man, addressing the new leader, “it is for you that this last order remitted to me is intended. Let us see your powers.”
“Here they are,” said the officer, exhibiting the royal signature.
“Here are your instructions,” replied the officer, placing the folded paper in his hands; and turning round towards D’Artagnan, “Come, monsieur,” said he, in an agitated voice (such despair did he behold in that man of iron), “do me the favor to depart at once.”
“Immediately!” articulated D’Artagnan, feebly, subdued, crushed by implacable impossibility.
And he painfully subsided into the little boat, which started, favored by wind and tide, for the coast of France. The king’s guards embarked with him. The musketeer still preserved the hope of reaching Nantes quickly, and of pleading the cause of his friends eloquently enough to incline the king to mercy. The bark flew like a swallow. D’Artagnan distinctly saw the land of France profiled in black against the white clouds of night.
“Ah! monsieur,” said he, in a low voice, to the officer to whom, for an hour, he had ceased speaking, “what would I give to know the instructions for the new commander! They are all pacific, are they not? and—”
He did not finish; the thunder of a distant cannon rolled athwart the waves, another, and two or three still louder. D’Artagnan shuddered.
“They have commenced the siege of Belle-Isle,” replied the officer. The canoe had just touched the soil of France.
Chapter XLV. The Ancestors of Porthos.
When D’Artagnan left Aramis and Porthos, the latter returned to the principal fort, in order to converse with greater liberty. Porthos, still thoughtful, was a restraint on Aramis, whose mind had never felt itself more free.
“Dear Porthos,” said he, suddenly, “I will explain D’Artagnan’s idea to you.”
“What idea, Aramis?”
“An idea to which we shall owe our liberty within twelve hours.”
“Ah! indeed!” said Porthos, much astonished. “Let us hear it.”
“Did you remark, in the scene our friend had with the officer, that certain orders constrained him with regard to us?”
“Yes, I did notice that.”
“Well! D’Artagnan is going to give in his resignation to the king, and during the confusion that will result from his absence, we will get away, or rather you will get away, Porthos, if there is possibility of flight for only one.”
Here Porthos shook his head and replied: “We will escape together, Aramis, or we will stay together.”
“Thine is a right, a generous heart,” said Aramis, “only your melancholy uneasiness affects me.”
“I am not uneasy,” said Porthos.
“Then you are angry with me.”
“I am not angry with you.”
“Then why, my friend, do you put on such a dismal countenance?”
“I will tell you; I am making my will.” And while saying these words, the good Porthos looked sadly in the face of Aramis.
“Your will!” cried the bishop. “What, then! do you think yourself lost?”
“I feel fatigued. It is the first time, and there is a custom in our family.”
“What is it, my friend?”
“My grandfather was a man twice as strong as I am.”
“Indeed!” said Aramis; “then your grandfather must have been Samson himself.”
“No; his name was Antoine. Well! he was about my age, when, setting out one day for the chase, he felt his legs weak, the man who had never known what weakness was before.”
“What was the meaning of that fatigue, my friend?”
“Nothing good, as you will see; for having set out, complaining still of weakness of the legs, he met a wild boar, which made head against him; he missed him with his arquebuse, and was ripped up by the beast and died immediately.”
“There is no reason in that why you should alarm yourself, dear Porthos.”
“Oh! you will see. My father was as strong again as I am. He was a rough soldier, under Henry III. and Henry IV.; his name was not Antoine, but Gaspard, the same as M. de Coligny. Always on horseback, he had never known what lassitude was. One evening, as he rose from table, his legs failed him.”
“He had supped heartily, perhaps,” said Aramis, “and that was why he staggered.”
“Bah! A friend of M. de Bassompierre, nonsense! No, no, he was astonished at this lassitude, and said to my mother, who laughed at him, ‘Would not one believe I was going to meet with a wild boar, as the late M. du Vallon, my father did?’”
“Well?” said Aramis.
“Well, having this weakness, my father insisted upon going down into the garden, instead of going to bed; his foot slipped on the first stair, the staircase was steep; my father fell against a stone in which an iron hinge was fixed. The hinge gashed his temple; and he was stretched out dead upon the spot.”
Aramis raised his eyes to his friend: “These are two extraordinary circumstances,” said he; “let us not infer that there may succeed a third. It is not becoming in a man of your strength to be superstitious, my brave Porthos. Besides, when were your legs known to fail? Never have you stood so firm, so haughtily; why, you could carry a house on your shoulders.”
“At this moment,” said Porthos, “I feel myself pretty active; but at times I vacillate; I sink; and lately this phenomenon, as you say, has occurred four times. I will not say this frightens me, but it annoys me. Life is an agreeable thing. I have money; I have fine estates; I have horses that I love; I have also friends that I love: D’Artagnan, Athos, Raoul, and you.”
The admirable Porthos did not even take the trouble to dissimulate in the very presence of Aramis the rank he gave him in his friendship. Aramis
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