Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas (best free ebook reader for android txt) 📕

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 manoeuvred 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.

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 conceal your face, so that you cannot be recognized by them.”

“Never fear.”

“There’s ten o’clock striking at Greenwich.”

Groslow, then, having given the sailor on duty an order to be on the watch with more than usual vigilance, went down into the longboat and soon reached Greenwich. The wind was chilly and the jetty was deserted, as he approached it; but he had no sooner landed than he heard a noise of horses galloping upon the paved road.

These horsemen were our friends, or rather, an avant garde, composed of D’Artagnan and Athos. As soon as they arrived at the spot where Groslow stood they stopped, as if guessing that he was the man they wanted. Athos alighted and calmly opened the handkerchief tied at each corner, whilst D’Artagnan, ever cautious, remained on horseback, one hand upon his pistol, leaning forward watchfully.

On seeing the appointed signal, Groslow, who had at first crept behind one of the cannon planted on that spot, walked straight up to the gentlemen. He was so well wrapped up in his cloak that it would have been impossible to see his face even if the night had not been so dark as to render precaution superfluous; nevertheless, the keen glance of Athos perceived at once it was not Rogers who stood before them.

“What do you want with us?” he asked of Groslow.

“I wish to inform you, my lord,” replied Groslow, with an Irish accent, feigned of course, “that if you are looking for Captain Rogers you will not find him. He fell down this morning and broke his leg. But I’m his cousin; he told me everything and desired me to watch instead of him, and in his place to conduct, wherever they wished to go, the gentlemen who should bring me a handkerchief tied at each corner, like that one which you hold and one which I