this."
Charles rose and turned toward Parry, whom he saw pale and
with his temples dewed with moisture.
"Well, my dear Parry," said he, "what is the matter, and
what can affect you in this manner?"
"Oh, my king," said Parry, with tears in his eyes and in a
tone of supplication, "do not look to the left as we leave
the hall."
"And why, Parry?"
"Do not look, I implore you, my king."
"But what is the matter? Speak," said Charles, attempting to
look across the hedge of guards which surrounded him.
"It is -- but you will not look, will you? -- it is because
they have had the axe, with which criminals are executed,
brought and placed there on the table. The sight is
hideous."
"Fools," said Charles, "do they take me for a coward, like
themselves? You have done well to warn me. Thank you,
Parry."
When the moment arrived the king followed his guards out of
the hall. As he passed the table on which the axe was laid,
he stopped, and turning with a smile, said:
"Ah! the axe, an ingenious device, and well worthy of those
who know not what a gentleman is; you frighten me not,
executioner's axe," added he, touching it with the cane
which he held in his hand, "and I strike you now, waiting
patiently and Christianly for you to return the blow."
And shrugging his shoulders with unaffected contempt he
passed on. When he reached the door a stream of people, who
had been disappointed in not being able to get into the
house and to make amends had collected to see him come out,
stood on each side, as he passed, many among them glaring on
him with threatening looks.
"How many people," thought he, "and not one true friend."
And as he uttered these words of doubt and depression within
his mind, a voice beside him said:
"Respect to fallen majesty."
The king turned quickly around, with tears in his eyes and
heart. It was an old soldier of the guards who could not see
his king pass captive before him without rendering him this
final homage. But the next moment the unfortunate man was
nearly killed with heavy blows of sword-hilts, and among
those who set upon him the king recognized Captain Groslow.
"Alas!" said Charles, "that is a severe chastisement for a
very trifling fault."
He continued his walk, but he had scarcely gone a hundred
paces, when a furious fellow, leaning between two soldiers,
spat in the king's face, as once an infamous and accursed
Jew spit in the face of Jesus of Nazareth. Loud roars of
laughter and sullen murmurs arose together. The crowd opened
and closed again, undulating like a stormy sea, and the king
imagined that he saw shining in the midst of this living
wave the bright eyes of Athos.
Charles wiped his face and said with a sad smile: "Poor
wretch, for half a crown he would do as much to his own
father."
The king was not mistaken. Athos and his friends, again
mingling with the throng, were taking a last look at the
martyr king.
When the soldier saluted Charles, Athos's heart bounded for
joy; and that unfortunate, on coming to himself, found ten
guineas that the French gentleman had slipped into his
pocket. But when the cowardly insulter spat in the face of
the captive monarch Athos grasped his dagger. But D'Artagnan
stopped his hand and in a hoarse voice cried, "Wait!"
Athos stopped. D'Artagnan, leaning on Athos, made a sign to
Porthos and Aramis to keep near them and then placed himself
behind the man with the bare arms, who was still laughing at
his own vile pleasantry and receiving the congratulations of
several others.
The man took his way toward the city. The four friends
followed him. The man, who had the appearance of being a
butcher, descended a little steep and isolated street,
looking on to the river, with two of his friends. Arrived at
the bank of the river the three men perceived that they were
followed, turned around, and looking insolently at the
Frenchmen, passed some jests from one to another.
"I don't know English, Athos," said D'Artagnan; "but you
know it and will interpret for me."
Then quickening their steps they passed the three men, but
turned back immediately, and D'Artagnan walked straight up
to the butcher and touching him on the chest with the tip of
his finger, said to Athos:
"Say this to him in English: `You are a coward. You have
insulted a defenseless man. You have defouled the face of
your king. You must die.'"
Athos, pale as a ghost, repeated these words to the man,
who, seeing the bodeful preparations that were making, put
himself in an attitude of defense. Aramis, at this movement,
drew his sword.
"No," cried D'Artagnan, "no steel. Steel is for gentlemen."
And seizing the butcher by the throat:
"Porthos," said he, "kill this fellow for me with a single
blow."
Porthos raised his terrible fist, which whistled through the
air like a sling, and the portentous mass fell with a
smothered crash on the insulter's skull and crushed it. The
man fell like an ox beneath the poleaxe. His companions,
horror-struck, could neither move nor cry out.
"Tell them this, Athos," resumed D'Artagnan; "thus shall all
die who forget that a captive man is sacred and that a
captive king doubly represents the Lord."
Athos repeated D'Artagnan's words.
The fellows looked at the body of their companion, swimming
in blood, and then recovering voice and legs together, ran
screaming off.
"Justice is done," said Porthos, wiping his forehead.
"And now," said D'Artagnan to Athos, "entertain no further
doubts about me; I undertake all that concerns the king."
64
Whitehall.
The parliament condemned Charles to death, as might have
been foreseen. Political judgments are generally vain
formalities, for the same passions which give rise to the
accusation ordain to the condemnation. Such is the atrocious
logic of revolutions.
Although our friends were expecting that condemnation, it
filled them with grief. D'Artagnan, whose mind was never
more fertile in resources than in critical emergencies,
swore again that he would try all conceivable means to
prevent the denouement of the bloody tragedy. But by what
means? As yet he could form no definite plan; all must
depend on circumstances. Meanwhile, it was necessary at all
hazards, in order to gain time, to put some obstacle in the
way of the execution on the following day -- the day
appointed by the judges. The only way of doing that was to
cause the disappearance of the London executioner. The
headsman out of the way, the sentence could not be executed.
True, they could send for the headsman of the nearest town,
but at least a day would be gained, and a day might be
sufficient for the rescue. D'Artagnan took upon himself that
more than difficult task.
Another thing, not less essential, was to warn Charles
Stuart of the attempt to be made, so that he might assist
his rescuers as much as possible, or at least do nothing to
thwart their efforts. Aramis assumed that perilous charge.
Charles Stuart had asked that Bishop Juxon might be
permitted to visit him. Mordaunt had called on the bishop
that very evening to apprise him of the religious desire
expressed by the king and also of Cromwell's permission.
Aramis determined to obtain from the bishop, through fear or
by persuasion, consent that he should enter in the bishop's
place, and clad in his sacerdotal robes, the prison at
Whitehall.
Finally, Athos undertook to provide, in any event, the means
of leaving England -- in case either of failure or of
success.
The night having come they made an appointment to meet at
eleven o'clock at the hotel, and each started out to fulfill
his dangerous mission.
The palace of Whitehall was guarded by three regiments of
cavalry and by the fierce anxiety of Cromwell, who came and
went or sent his generals or his agents continually. Alone
in his usual room, lighted by two candles, the condemned
monarch gazed sadly on the luxury of his past greatness,
just as at the last hour one sees the images of life more
mildly brilliant than of yore.
Parry had not quitted his master, and since his condemnation
had not ceased to weep. Charles, leaning on a table, was
gazing at a medallion of his wife and daughter; he was
waiting first for Juxon, then for martyrdom.
At times he thought of those brave French gentlemen who had
appeared to him from a distance of a hundred leagues
fabulous and unreal, like the forms that appear in dreams.
In fact, he sometimes asked himself if all that was
happening to him was not a dream, or at least the delirium
of a fever. He rose and took a few steps as if to rouse
himself from his torpor and went as far as the window; he
saw glittering below him the muskets of the guards. He was
thereupon constrained to admit that he was indeed awake and
that his bloody dream was real.
Charles returned in silence to his chair, rested his elbow
on the table, bowed his head upon his hand and reflected.
"Alas!" he said to himself, "if I only had for a confessor
one of those lights of the church, whose soul has sounded
all the mysteries of life, all the littlenesses of
greatness, perhaps his utterance would overawe the voice
that wails within my soul. But I shall have a priest of
vulgar mind, whose career and fortune I have ruined by my
misfortune. He will speak to me of God and death, as he has
spoken to many another dying man, not understanding that
this one leaves his throne to an usurper, his children to
the cold contempt of public charity."
And he raised the medallion to his lips.
It was a dull, foggy night. A neighboring church clock
slowly struck the hour. The flickering light of the two
candles showed fitful phantom shadows in the lofty room.
These were the ancestors of Charles, standing back dimly in
their tarnished frames.
An awful sadness enveloped the heart of Charles. He buried
his brow in his hands and thought of the world, so beautiful
when one is about to leave it; of the caresses of children,
so pleasing and so sweet, especially when one is parting
from his children never to see them again; then of his wife,
the noble and courageous woman who had sustained him to the
last moment. He drew from his breast the diamond cross and
the star of the Garter which she had sent him by those
generous Frenchmen; he kissed it, and then, as he reflected,
that she would never again see those things till he lay cold
and mutilated in the tomb, there passed over him one of
those icy shivers which may be called forerunners of death.
Then, in that chamber which recalled to him so many royal
souvenirs, whither had come so many courtiers, the scene of
so much flattering homage, alone with a despairing servant,
whose feeble soul could afford no support to his own, the
king at last yielded to sorrow, and his courage sank to a
level with that feebleness, those shadows, and that wintry
cold. That king, who was so grand, so sublime in the hour of
death, meeting his fate with a smile of resignation on his
lips, now in that gloomy hour wiped away a tear which had
fallen on the table and quivered on the gold embroidered
cloth.
Suddenly the door opened, an ecclesiastic in episcopal robes
entered, followed by two guards, to whom the king waved an
imperious gesture. The guards retired; the room resumed its
obscurity.
"Juxon!" cried Charles, "Juxon, thank you, my last friend;
you come at a fitting moment."
The bishop looked anxiously at the man sobbing in the
ingle-nook.
"Come, Parry," said the king, "cease your tears."
"If it's Parry," said the bishop, "I have nothing to fear;
so allow me to salute your majesty and to tell you who I am
and for what I am come."
At this sight and this voice Charles was about to cry out,
when Aramis placed his finger on his lips and bowed low to
the king of England.
"The chevalier!" murmured Charles.
"Yes, sire," interrupted Aramis, raising his voice, "Bishop
Juxon, the faithful knight of Christ, obedient to your
majesty's wishes."
Charles clasped his hands, amazed and stupefied to find that
these foreigners, without other motive than that which their
conscience imposed on them, thus combated the will of a
people and the destiny of a king.
"You!" he said, "you! how did you penetrate hither? If they
recognize you, you are lost."
"Care not for me, sire; think only of yourself. You see,
your friends are wakeful. I know not what we shall do yet,
but four determined men can do much. Meanwhile, do not be
surprised at anything that happens; prepare yourself for
every emergency."
Charles shook his head.
"Do you know that I die to-morrow at ten o'clock?"
"Something, your majesty, will happen between now and then
to make the execution impossible."
The king looked at Aramis with astonishment.
At this moment a strange noise, like the unloading of a
cart, and followed by a cry of pain, was heard beneath the
window.
"Do you hear?" said the king.
"I hear," said Aramis, "but I understand neither the noise
nor the cry of pain."
"I know not who can have uttered the cry," said the king,
"but the noise is easily understood. Do you know that I am
to be beheaded outside this window? Well, these boards you
hear unloaded are the posts and planks to build my scaffold.
Some workmen must have fallen underneath them and been
hurt."
Aramis shuddered in spite of himself.
"You see," said the king, "that it is useless for you to
