Part 27

The fisherman told him that, some six days earlier, a man had come to hire his boat for the night in order to pay a visit to the Île Saint-Honorat. The price was agreed; but the gentleman had arrived with a large coach chest which he had insisted on embarking despite the difficulties of every kind that such an operation presented. The fisherman had wanted to back out. The gentleman had threatened him, and his threat had only earned him a great number of hard blows from the cane of that gentleman, who struck strongly and at length. Grumbling all the while, the fisherman had recourse to the syndic of his fellow fishermen at Antibes, who among themselves administer justice and protect one another; but the gentleman had produced a certain paper at the sight of which the syndic, bowing to the ground, had ordered the fisherman to obey, scolding him for having been refractory. Then they had set off with the cargo.

— But all that does not tell us, Athos resumed, how you came to grief.

— Here it is. I was bound for Saint-Honorat, as the gentleman had told me; but he changed his mind and claimed that I could not pass to the south of the abbey.

— Why not?

— Because, sir, there is, facing the square tower of the Benedictines, toward the southern point, the shoal of the Monks.

— A reef? said Athos.

— Level with the water and beneath it, a dangerous passage, but one I have crossed a thousand times; the gentleman asked me to put him ashore at Sainte-Marguerite.

— Well?

— Well! sir, cried the fisherman with his Provençal accent, one is a sailor or one is not, one knows one's channel or one is but a mere freshwater shower. I was bent on passing. The gentleman took me by the throat and quietly announced that he was going to strangle me. My mate armed himself with an axe, and so did I. We had the insult of the night to avenge. But the gentleman drew his sword, with such swift movements that neither of us could come near him. I was about to hurl my axe at his head, and I was within my rights, was I not, sir? for a sailor on his deck is master, as a burgher in his chamber; I was therefore about to, in self-defense, cut the gentleman in two, when suddenly, believe it if you will, sir, that coach chest opened somehow, and there came out of it a sort of phantom, capped with a black helmet, with a black mask, something frightful to behold, who threatens us with his fist.

— It was? said Athos.

— It was the devil, sir! for the gentleman, joyfully, cried out at the sight of him: 'Ah! thank you, my lord.'

— Strange! murmured the count, looking at Raoul.

— What did you do? asked the latter of the fisherman.

— You understand well, sir, that two poor men like us were already too few against two gentlemen; but against the devil! ah, indeed! We did not consult, my companion and I, but we made but one leap into the sea: we were seven or eight hundred feet from the shore.

— And then?

— And then, sir, as there was a light southwest wind, the boat kept drifting and went to cast itself upon the sands of Sainte-Marguerite.

— Oh!... but the two travelers?

— Bah! do not trouble yourself. That is proof enough that one was the devil and protected the other; for, when we regained the boat by swimming, instead of finding those two creatures broken by the shock, we found nothing more, not even the coach.

— Strange! strange! repeated the count. But, since then, my friend, what have you done?

— I lodged a complaint with the governor of Sainte-Marguerite, who put his finger under my nose, telling me that, if I sought to tell him such nonsense, he would pay me back with blows of the stirrup-leather.

— The governor?

— Yes, sir; and yet my boat was broken, badly broken, since the prow remained on the point of Sainte-Marguerite, and the carpenter asks me a hundred and twenty livres for the repair.

— That will do, replied Raoul, you shall be exempt from service. Go.

— We shall go to Sainte-Marguerite, will you? Athos then said to Bragelonne.

— Yes, sir; for there is something there to clear up, and this man does not strike me as having told the truth.

— Nor me either, Raoul. This story of the masked gentleman and the vanished coach gives me the impression of a way to conceal the violence that this boor might perhaps have committed at sea upon his passenger, to punish him for the insistence he had shown in embarking.

— I conceived the suspicion, and the coach would have contained valuables rather than a man.

— We shall see that, Raoul. Very certainly, this gentleman resembles d'Artagnan; I recognize his ways. Alas! we are no longer the invincible young men of former days. Who knows if the axe or the tiller of this wicked coaster did not succeed in doing what the finest swords of Europe, bullets and cannonballs, have not done for forty years.

That very day, they set out for Sainte-Marguerite, aboard a fishing smack come from Toulon by order.

The impression they felt on landing was a singular well-being. The island was full of flowers and fruit; it served as a garden to the governor in its cultivated part. Orange trees, pomegranates, fig trees bent under the weight of their fruits of gold and azure. All around this garden, in its wild part, red partridges ran in flocks through the brambles and juniper thickets, and, at every step Raoul and the count took, a frightened rabbit left the marjoram and heather to return to its burrow.

Indeed, this blessed island was uninhabited. Flat, offering but a single cove for the arrival of boats, and under the protection of the governor, with whom they shared, the smugglers used it as a provisional storehouse, on condition of not killing the game nor devastating the garden. By virtue of this compromise, the governor contented himself with a garrison of eight men to guard his fortress, in which a dozen cannon lay mouldering. This governor was therefore a happy farmer, harvesting wines, figs, oils and oranges, having his lemons and citrons candied in the sun of his casemates.

The fortress, encircled by a deep moat, its sole guardian, raised like three heads its three turrets, linked one to another by mossy terraces.

Athos and Raoul followed for some time the enclosures of the garden without finding anyone to introduce them to the governor. They ended by entering the garden. It was the hottest moment of the day.

Then all hides beneath the grass and beneath the stone. The sky spreads its veils of fire as if to stifle all sounds, to envelop all existences. The partridge beneath the broom, the fly beneath the leaf, fall asleep as does the wave beneath the sky.

Athos perceived only on the terrace, between the second and third courtyard, a soldier who carried as it were a basket of provisions on his head. This man returned almost immediately without his basket, and disappeared into the shadow of the sentry-box.

Athos understood that this man was carrying dinner to someone and that, having done his service, he had come back to dine himself.

Suddenly he heard himself called, and, raising his head, perceived in the framing of the bars of a window something white, like a hand that waved, something dazzling, like a weapon struck by the rays of the sun.

And, before he had taken account of what he had just seen, a luminous trail, accompanied by a whistling in the air, called his attention from the donjon to the earth.

A second dull noise was heard in the moat, and Raoul ran to pick up a silver plate that had just rolled into the dried sands.

The hand that had flung this plate made a sign to the two gentlemen, then disappeared.

Then Raoul and Athos, drawing near one another, began to examine attentively the plate soiled with dust, and they discovered, on the bottom, characters traced with the point of a knife:

"I am," said the inscription, "the brother of the King of France, prisoner today, mad tomorrow. French and Christian gentlemen, pray God for the soul and reason of the son of your masters!"

The plate fell from Athos's hands, while Raoul sought to penetrate the mysterious sense of these lugubrious words.

At the same instant, a cry was heard from the top of the donjon. Raoul, swift as lightning, bent his head and forced his father to bend also. A musket barrel had just glinted at the crest of the wall. A white smoke sprang like a panache from the muzzle of the musket, and a ball came to flatten itself on a stone, six inches from the two gentlemen. Another musket appeared and lowered.

— God's body! cried Athos, do they assassinate people here? Come down, you cowards that you are!

— Yes, come down! said Raoul furiously, shaking his fist at the castle.

One of the two assailants, he who was about to fire the musket shot, answered these cries with an exclamation of surprise, and, as his companion wished to continue the attack and regained the fully primed musket, he who had just cried out raised the weapon, and the shot went off in the air.

Athos and Raoul, seeing that they were disappearing from the platform, thought that someone was coming to them, and they awaited them firmly on foot.

Five minutes had not elapsed when a tap of the drumstick called the eight soldiers of the garrison, who showed themselves on the other side of the moat with their muskets. At the head of these men stood an officer whom the Vicomte de Bragelonne recognized as he who had fired the first musket shot.

This man ordered the soldiers to present arms.

— We are going to be shot! cried Raoul. Sword in hand, at least, and let us leap the moat! We shall each kill one of those rogues when their muskets are empty.

And already Raoul, joining action to counsel, was springing forward, followed by Athos, when a well-known voice rang out behind them.

— Athos! Raoul! cried this voice.

— D'Artagnan! answered the two gentlemen.

— Arms down, by God! cried the captain to the soldiers. I was quite sure of what I said, myself!

The soldiers raised their muskets.

— What is happening to us then? said Athos. What! they fire upon us without warning?

— It was I who was about to have you shot, replied d'Artagnan; and, if the governor missed you, I should not have missed you, dear friends. What happiness that I have taken the habit of aiming long, instead of firing by instinct while aiming! I thought I recognized you. Ah! my dear friends, what happiness!

And d'Artagnan wiped his brow, for he had run fast, and the emotion in him was not feigned.

— How! said the count, this gentleman who fired upon us is the governor of the fortress?

— In person.

— And why was he firing upon us? what have we done to him?

— By God! you received what the prisoner threw you.

— That is true!

— That plate... the prisoner wrote something upon it, did he not?

— Yes.

— I had suspected as much. Ah! my God!

And, d'Artagnan, with all the marks of mortal unease, seized the plate to read the inscription. When he had read it, pallor covered his face.

— Oh! my God! he repeated. Silence! Here comes the governor.

— And what will he do to us? Is it our fault?...

— Is it true then? said Athos half aloud, is it true then?

— Silence! I tell you, silence! If it is believed that you know how to read, if it is supposed that you have understood, I love you well, dear friends, I would have myself killed for you... but...

— But... said Athos and Raoul.

— But I should not save you from an eternal prison, if I saved you from death. Silence, then! silence again!

The governor arrived, having crossed the moat on a plank footbridge.

— Well! said he to d'Artagnan, what stops you?

— You are Spaniards, you do not understand a word of French, said the captain quickly, low, to his friends. Well! he resumed, addressing the governor, I was right, these gentlemen are two Spanish captains whom I knew at Ypres, last year... They do not know a word of French.

— Ah! said the governor attentively.

And he sought to read the inscription on the plate.

D'Artagnan took it from his hands, effacing the characters with the point of his sword.

— What! cried the governor, what are you doing? Can I not read then?

— It is the secret of State, replied d'Artagnan bluntly, and, since you know, by the king's order, that there is penalty of death against whoever penetrates it, I am going, if you wish, to let you read and have you shot immediately after.

During this apostrophe, half serious half ironic, Athos and Raoul kept a silence full of composure.

— But it is impossible, said the governor, that these gentlemen do not understand at least a few words.

— Leave it be! even if they understood what is spoken, they would not read what is written. They would not even read it in Spanish. A noble Spaniard, remember it, must never know how to read.

The governor had to content himself with these explanations, but he was tenacious.

— Invite these gentlemen to come to the fort, said he.

— I am willing, and I was about to propose it to you, replied d'Artagnan.

The fact is that the captain had a quite different idea, and that he would have liked to see his friends a hundred leagues away. But he was forced to hold firm.

He addressed in Spanish to the two gentlemen an invitation which they accepted.

They directed themselves toward the entrance of the fort, and, the incident being settled, the eight soldiers returned to their sweet leisure, for a moment troubled by this unheard-of adventure.

Chapter CCXXXVIII — Captive and Jailers

Once entered into the fort, and while the governor made some preparations to receive his guests:

— Come, said Athos, a word of explanation while we are alone.

— Here it is simply, replied the musketeer. I conducted to the island a prisoner whom the king forbids should be seen; you arrived, he threw you something from his window wicket; I was dining with the governor, I saw the object thrown, I saw Raoul pick it up. It did not take me long to understand, I understood, and I believed you in intelligence with my prisoner. Then...

— Then you ordered that we be shot.

— Faith! I confess it; but, if I was the first to seize a musket, happily I was the last to take aim at you.

— If you had killed me, d'Artagnan, there would have befallen me the happiness of dying for the royal house of France; and it is a mark of honor to die by your hand, you, its noblest and most loyal defender.

— Come! Athos, what are you telling me there of the royal house? stammered d'Artagnan. How! you, count, a wise and well-advised man, do you believe in those follies written by a madman?

— With so much the more reason, my dear knight, that you have order to kill those who would believe it, continued Raoul.

— Because, replied the captain of musketeers, because every calumny, if it is well absurd, has the almost certain chance of becoming popular.

— No, d'Artagnan, Athos resumed in a low voice, because the king does not wish the secret of his family to transpire among the people and cover with infamy the executioners of the son of Louis XIII.

— Come, come, do not say such childishness, Athos, or I disown you as a sensible man. Besides, explain to me how Louis XIII would have a son in the Sainte-Marguerite islands?

— A son whom you would have brought here, masked, in the boat of a fisherman, said Athos, why not?

D'Artagnan stopped.

— Ah! ah! said he, how do you know that a fishing boat?...

— Brought you to Sainte-Marguerite with the coach which enclosed the prisoner; with the prisoner whom you call my lord? oh! I know it, resumed the count.

D'Artagnan bit his mustache.

— Were it true, said he, that I brought here in a boat and with a coach a masked prisoner, nothing proves that this prisoner is a prince... a prince of the house of France.

— Oh! ask that of Aramis, answered Athos coldly.

— Of Aramis? cried the musketeer disconcerted. You have seen Aramis?

— After his misadventure at Vaux, yes; I have seen Aramis fugitive, pursued, lost, and Aramis told me enough for me to believe the complaints that this unfortunate one graved upon the silver plate.

D'Artagnan let his head sink with overwhelmment.

— See, said he, how God makes sport of what men call their wisdom! Fine secret, that of which a dozen or fifteen persons now hold the shreds!... Athos, accursed be the chance that put you face to face with me in this affair! for now...

— Well! said Athos with his severe gentleness, is your secret lost because I know it? have I not borne as heavy ones in my life? Have some memory, then, my dear.

— You have never borne any so perilous, replied d'Artagnan with sadness. I have as it were a sinister idea that all those who shall have touched this secret will die, and die badly.

— May the will of God be done, d'Artagnan! But here is your governor.

D'Artagnan and his friends immediately resumed their roles.

This governor, suspicious and harsh, was toward d'Artagnan of a politeness going even to obsequiousness. He contented himself with making good cheer for the travelers and looking well at them.

Athos and Raoul remarked that he often sought to embarrass them by sudden attacks, or to catch them off their guard; but neither one nor the other was disconcerted. What d'Artagnan had said might appear likely, if the governor did not believe it true.

They left the table to go rest.

— What is that man called? He has an evil look, said Athos in Spanish to d'Artagnan.

— De Saint-Mars, replied the captain.

— Would he then be the jailer of the young prince?

— Eh! do I know? I am perhaps at Sainte-Marguerite forever.

— Come now! you?

— My friend, I am in the situation of a man who finds a treasure in the midst of a desert. He would like to carry it off, he cannot; he would like to leave it, he dares not. The king will not have me return, fearing another might watch less well than I; he regrets no longer having me, feeling well that none will serve him as closely as I. At rest, there will happen what it pleases God.

— But, observed Raoul, by that very fact that you have nothing certain, it is that your state here is provisional, and you will return to Paris.

— Ask these gentlemen, interrupted Saint-Mars, what they came to do at Sainte-Marguerite.

— They came, knowing there was a Benedictine convent at Saint-Honorat, curious to see, and in Sainte-Marguerite fine hunting.

— At their disposal, replied Saint-Mars, as at yours.

D'Artagnan thanked him.

— When do they leave? added the governor.

— Tomorrow, answered d'Artagnan.

M. de Saint-Mars went to make his round and left d'Artagnan alone with the supposed Spaniards.

— Oh! cried the musketeer, there is a life and a society that suit me little. I command this man, and he hinders me, by God!... Tell me, will you that we make a musket shot at the rabbits? The walk will be fine and little tiring. The island is but a league and a half long, on half a league wide; a true park. Let us amuse ourselves.

— Lead us where you will, d'Artagnan, not to divert ourselves, but to talk freely.

D'Artagnan made a sign to a soldier who understood and brought hunting muskets to the gentlemen, and went back into the fort.

— And now, said the musketeer, answer a little the question that black Saint-Mars was putting: What came you to do at the Lérins islands?

— To say farewell to you.

— Say farewell to me? How so? Raoul is leaving?

— Yes.

— With M. de Beaufort, I wager?

— With M. de Beaufort. Oh! you always guess, dear friend.

— Habit...

While the two friends began their talk, Raoul, his head heavy, his heart laden, had seated himself on mossy rocks, his musket on his knees, and, looking at the sea, looking at the sky, listening to the voice of his soul, he little by little let the hunters draw away from him.

D'Artagnan remarked his absence.

— He is still stricken, is he not? said he to Athos.

— Unto death!

— Oh! you exaggerate, I think. Raoul is well tempered. Upon all so noble hearts there is a second envelope that makes a cuirass. The first bleeds, the second resists.

— No, answered Athos, Raoul will die of it.

— By God! said d'Artagnan darkly.

And he added not a word to this exclamation. Then, a moment after:

— Why do you let him go?

— Because he wishes it.

— And why do you not go with him?

— Because I do not wish to see him die.

D'Artagnan looked his friend full in the face.

— You know one thing, continued the count leaning on the captain's arm, you know that, in my life, I have feared few things. Well! I have an incessant, gnawing, insurmountable fear; I fear to arrive at the day when I shall hold the corpse of that child in my arms.

— Oh! answered d'Artagnan, oh!

— He will die, I know it, I am convinced of it; I do not wish to see him die.

— How! Athos, you come to pose in the presence of the bravest man you say you have known, of your d'Artagnan, of that man without equal, as you called him formerly, and you come to tell him, crossing your arms, that you fear to see your son dead, you who have seen all that one can see in this world? Well! why do you fear that, Athos? Man, upon this earth, must expect all, confront all.

— Listen, my friend: after wearing myself upon this earth of which you speak, I have kept but two religions: that of life, my friendships, my duty as father; that of eternity, the love and respect of God. Now, I have within me the revelation that, if God suffered that in my presence my friend or my son breathed the last sigh... oh! no, I do not even wish to tell you that, d'Artagnan.

— Speak! speak!

— I am strong against all, save against the death of those I love. To that alone there is no remedy. He who dies gains, he who sees die loses. No. See: to know that I shall never meet again, never, upon earth, him whom I saw there with joy; to know that nowhere more shall be d'Artagnan, shall be no more Raoul, oh!... I am old, you see, I have no more courage; I pray God to spare me in my weakness; but, if He struck me in the face, and in this fashion, I would curse Him. A Christian gentleman must not curse his God, d'Artagnan; it is quite enough to have cursed a king!

— Hum!... said d'Artagnan, a little upset by this violent tempest of griefs.

— D'Artagnan, my friend, you who love Raoul, see him, he added showing his son; see this sadness that never leaves him. Do you know anything more awful than to assist, minute by minute, at the incessant agony of that poor heart?

— Let me speak to him, Athos. Who knows?

— Try; but, I am convinced of it, you will not succeed.

— I shall give him no consolation, I shall serve him.

— You?

— Doubtless. Is it the first time a woman would go back on an infidelity? I go to him, I tell you.

Athos shook his head and continued the walk alone. D'Artagnan, cutting across the brushwood, came back to Raoul and held out his hand.

— Well! said d'Artagnan to Raoul, you have something to say to me then?

— I have to ask you a service, replied Bragelonne.

— Ask.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”