The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas [read out loud books .TXT] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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The prisoner turned his head, as if looking behind him for some protection, on which he ought to rely. Then was it that Aramis came out of the shade: “I am here,” he said, “to render the gentleman whatever service he may please to ask.”
The prisoner slightly reddened, and, without hesitation, passed his arm through that of Aramis. “God have you in his holy keeping,” he said, in a voice the firmness of which made the governor tremble as much as the form of the blessing astonished him.
Aramis, on shaking hands with Baisemeaux, said to him; “Does my order trouble you? Do you fear their finding it here, should they come to search?”
“I desire to keep it, monseigneur,” said Baisemeaux. “If they found it here, it would be a certain indication I should be lost, and in that case you would be a powerful and a last auxiliary for me.”
“Being your accomplice, you mean?” answered Aramis, shrugging his shoulders. “Adieu, Baisemeaux,” said he.
The horses were in waiting, making each rusty spring reverberate the carriage again with their impatience. Baisemeaux accompanied the bishop to the bottom of the steps. Aramis caused his companion to mount before him, then followed, and without giving the driver any further order, “Go on,” said he. The carriage rattled over the pavement of the courtyard. An officer with a torch went before the horses, and gave orders at every post to let them pass. During the time taken in opening all the barriers, Aramis barely breathed, and you might have heard his “sealed heart knock against his ribs.” The prisoner, buried in a corner of the carriage, made no more sign of life than his companion. At length, a jolt more sever than the others announced to them that they had cleared the last watercourse. Behind the carriage closed the last gate, that in the Rue St. Antoine. No more walls either on the right or the left; heaven everywhere, liberty everywhere, and life everywhere. The horses, kept in check by a vigorous hand, went quietly as far as the middle of the faubourg. There they began to trot. Little by little, whether they were warming to their work, or whether they were urged, they gained in swiftness, and once past Bercy, the carriage seemed to fly, so great was the ardor of the coursers. The horses galloped thus as far as Villeneuve St. George’s, where relays were waiting. Then four instead of two whirled the carriage away in the direction of Melun, and pulled up for a moment in the middle of the forest of Senart. No doubt the order had been given the postilion beforehand, for Aramis had no occasion even to make a sign.
“What is the matter?” asked the prisoner, as if waking from a long dream.
“The matter is, monseigneur,” said Aramis, “that before going further, it is necessary your royal highness and I should converse.”
“I will await an opportunity, monsieur,” answered the young prince.
“We could not have a better, monseigneur. We are in the middle of a forest, and no one can hear us.”
“The postilion?”
“The postilion of this relay is deaf and dumb, monseigneur.”
“I am at your service, M. d’Herblay.”
“Is it your pleasure to remain in the carriage?”
“Yes; we are comfortably seated, and I like this carriage, for it has restored me to liberty.”
“Wait, monseigneur; there is yet a precaution to be taken.”
“What?”
“We are here on the highway; cavaliers or carriages traveling like ourselves might pass, and seeing us stopping, deem us in some difficulty. Let us avoid offers of assistance, which would embarrass us.”
“Give the postilion orders to conceal the carriage in one of the side avenues.”
“‘Tis exactly what I wished to do, monseigneur.”
Aramis made a sign to the deaf and dumb driver of the carriage, whom he touched on the arm. The latter dismounted, took the leaders by the bridle, and led them over the velvet sward and the mossy grass of a winding alley, at the bottom of which, on this moonless night, the deep shades formed a curtain blacker than ink. This done, the man lay down on a slope near his horses, who, on either side, kept nibbling the young oak shoots.
“I am listening,” said the young prince to Aramis; “but what are you doing there?”
“I am disarming myself of my pistols, of which we have no further need, monseigneur.”
Chapter IX. The Tempter.
“My prince,” said Aramis, turning in the carriage towards his companion, “weak creature as I am, so unpretending in genius, so low in the scale of intelligent beings, it has never yet happened to me to converse with a man without penetrating his thoughts through that living mask which has been thrown over our mind, in order to retain its expression. But to-night, in this darkness, in the reserve which you maintain, I can read nothing on your features, and something tells me that I shall have great difficulty in wresting from you a sincere declaration. I beseech you, then, not for love of me, for subjects should never weigh as anything in the balance which princes hold, but for love of yourself, to retain every syllable, every inflexion which, under the present most grave circumstances, will all have a sense and value as important as any every uttered in the world.”
“I listen,” replied the young prince, “decidedly, without either eagerly seeking or fearing anything you are about to say to me.” And he buried himself still deeper in the thick cushions of the carriage, trying to deprive his companion not only of the sight of him, but even of the very idea of his presence.
Black was the darkness which fell wide and dense from the summits of the intertwining trees. The carriage, covered in by this prodigious roof, would not have received a particle of light, not even if a ray could have struggled through the wreaths of mist that were already rising in the avenue.
“Monseigneur,” resumed Aramis, “you know the history of the government which to-day controls France. The king issued from an infancy imprisoned like yours, obscure as yours, and confined as yours; only, instead of ending, like yourself, this slavery in a prison, this obscurity in solitude, these straightened circumstances in concealment, he was fain to bear all these miseries, humiliations, and distresses, in full daylight, under the pitiless sun of royalty; on an elevation flooded with light, where every stain appears a blemish, every glory a stain. The king has suffered; it rankles in his mind; and he will avenge himself. He will be a bad king. I say not that he will pour out his people’s blood, like Louis XI., or Charles IX.; for he has no mortal injuries to avenge; but he will devour the
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