His Majesty was to follow so soon as the parliamentary session was over. On June 23, despite his high fever, the King insisted upon setting forth but his condition grew worse and he was forced to halt at Villeroi.
Wherever the King halted, so did the musketeers. Thus D’Artagnan, a mere guardsman, was separated from his friends; it occasioned him a certain annoyance which would have been an extreme anxiety had he suspected what unknown dangers surrounded him. Nevertheless he reached the camp before La Rochelle on September 10, 1627, to find things at a stalemate. The Duke of Buckingham and his Englishmen were still masters of the Ile de Ré; they were vainly pursuing the siege of the citadel of Saint Martin and of the Fort de la Prée. Hostilities with La Rochelle had started two or three days before, over a fortress newly set up close to the city walls by the Duc d’Angoulême. His Majesty’s Guards, under the command of Monsieur des Essarts, took up quarters at the Convent of the Minim Friars. D’Artagnan, intent on transferring to the musketeers, formed few friendships with his own comrades; he was lonely, a prey to his own thoughts.
These thoughts were far from pleasurable. Since his descent upon Paris—now long ago or was it yesterday?—he had been embroiled in public affairs. But his private affairs showed scant progress, whether in his amours or in making of his fortune. As to love, the only woman he craved was Madame Bonacieux and Madame Bonacieux had vanished into thin air.
As for making his fortune, humble though he was, he had made a sworn enemy of the Cardinal before whom even the King trembled. The Cardinal could so easily crush him; and the marvel was that he had not yet done so. In the forbearance of the prelate, D’Artagnan saw a ray of light beckoning toward a more promising future.
There was another enemy, too, less to be feared, perhaps, but not to be dismissed blithely: Milady.
Against this, D’Artagnan had acquired the protection and the friendship of the Queen. But Her Majesty’s protection was one more cause for immediate persecution. Of what avail had the Queen’s benevolence been for Monsieur de Chalais and, more recently, for Madame Bonacieux?
His clearest gain in all this was the diamond, worth five or six thousand livres, which he sported on his finger. Yet of what use was it at the moment? Suppose he kept it and, in better days, presented it to the Queen as a reminder of the circumstances in which she had given it? Today it was worth no more than the stones he trod underfoot.
The stones he trod underfoot? Ay, for as he meditated D’Artagnan was walking alone down an attractive lane which led from the camp to the village of Angoutin. His musings took him farther afield than he realized; the last feeble rays of the setting sun showed him that he was far beyond the camp limits. Suddenly he started in surprise as he detected what looked like the glitter of a musket barrel behind a hedge to his right. Quick of eye and ready of understanding, he realized that this musket was not planted there of its own volition and that whoever shouldered it was no friend. He therefore decided to take to the open when on his left, behind a rock, he glimpsed the muzzle of another musket.
“I am between the devil and the deep blue sea!” he mused. “An ambush, God help me!”
Looking swiftly at the first musket, he noticed somewhat anxiously that it was being slowly leveled in his direction; then, the moment he saw the muzzle come to a standstill, he threw himself flat on the ground. A shot whizzed by just over his head.
Aware he had no time to lose, D’Artagnan sprang up just in time to miss a bullet from the left, which scattered the gravel on which he had lain a moment before.
Now D’Artagnan was no foolhardy hero who seeks a ridiculous death in order to be acclaimed for refusing to withdraw an inch. Besides, sheer courage was out of the question here; he was trapped and had no means of facing his enemies.
“A third shot and I am done for!” he thought as he took to his heels, darting back to camp at the double, with all the celerity of a Gascon—and Gascons are noted for their nimbleness and wind. Fast though our Gascon sped, the first bandit had reloaded his musket and fired again, this time so accurately that the bullet pierced D’Artagnan’s hat and sent it flying ten feet before him. Since D’Artagnan possessed no other headgear, he picked it up on the run, and reached his quarters very pale, out of breath and unnerved. Exhausted, he sat down and began to reflect.
What was this all about, he wondered.
The first and most natural explanation was that the men of La Rochelle had laid an ambush for him. They would not be displeased to kill one of His Majesty’s Guards because this would make one enemy the less and because the victim might have a well-lined purse in pocket. (He picked up his hat, examined the bullet hole and shook his head. The bullet came from no musket but from an harquebus. The accuracy of marksmanship proved that the weapon used was no campaign firearm but a special and costly precision weapon. Here was no military ambush, the more so since the bullet was not of regular military caliber.)
A second explanation occurred: perhaps the Cardinal had taken this occasion to remind D’Artagnan of his lively concern for him. D’Artagnan recalled that just as he had sighted the first barrel in the dying rays of the sun, he had been meditating upon the Cardinal’s forbearance. (But no, this was no work of the Cardinal’s. Why should His Eminence resort to such elaborate means when he had merely to stretch out his hand in order to destroy D’Artagnan?)
There was a third possibility and the likeliest: Milady! (But D’Artagnan sought vainly to recall the features or dress of the murderers; he had escaped so rapidly that he had seen only the two gleaming barrels.)
“Athos, Porthos, Aramis, where are you now, my dear friends?” he murmured. “How sorely I miss you!”
He spent a very bad night, awaking with a start several times; nightmares possessed him and twice at least he imagined he saw a man approaching his bed, dagger in hand. At long last day brought him the comfort of light, but he felt certain that his troubles had been merely postponed. So he spent the whole day in his quarters, persuading himself that he did so only because of the wretched weather.
Two days later at nine o’clock, the drums beat to arms; the Duc d’Orléans was making a surprise inspection. He passed along the front of the line; one by one, the commanding officers approached him to pay their compliments, Monsieur des Essarts among them. Presently D’Artagnan fancied that Monsieur des Essarts was motioning him to step forward, but diffidently he awaited a fresh sign from his superior. As the Captain motioned again, D’Artagnan stepped out of rank and advanced to receive orders.
“The Duc d’Orléans, our Commander-in-Chief, is about to call on volunteers for a special mission,” Monsieur des Essarts explained. “It is a dangerous mission but it will bring honor to those who undertake it. I thought you might be interested, Monsieur.”
“My deepest thanks, mon capitaine!” D’Artagnan bowed. What a stroke of luck! Here was a possibility of distinguishing himself under the eye of the Lieutenant-General.
The Duc d’Orléans explained that the men of La Rochelle had sallied during the night and recaptured a bastion which the Royal Army had taken two days earlier. The point was to ascertain by a desperate reconnaissance how heavily this bastion was manned. Raising his voice, he said:
“I shall need four or five volunteers, Captain, and a dependable man in charge.”
“This is the man we need,” Monsieur des Essarts answered, pointing to D’Artagnan. “As for the volunteers, Monsieur d’Artagnan has but to make his wishes known and the men will not be wanting.”
D’Artagnan turned about face, saluted the ranks, and cried:
“Four men wanted, front and center, to risk being killed with me!”
Two fellow guardsmen sprang forward; two common soldiers joined them, and D’Artagnan accepted the four as escort.
“First come, first served,” he told the others who had offered their services.
Whether the sallying forces from La Rochelle, having seized the bastion, evacuated or manned it was not known. D’Artagnan’s mission was to draw clo
se enough to the place to report on this score. He set out along the trench with his four companions, the two guards abreast of him, the privates at their heels. Screened by the parapet, they were within sixty yards of the bastion when D’Artagnan, turning around suddenly, noticed that the privates had disappeared.
“We are minus two,” he told his fellow-guardsmen. “I suppose they funked it. No matter, gentlemen, let us proceed!”
As they rounded the counterscarp, they were within twenty yards of the bastion. There was no one in sight; the bastion appeared to be deserted.
“A sleeveless errand!” said Guardsman Number One.
“A forlorn hope!” said Guardsman Number Two.
Then, as they were deliberating whether to advance or retreat, suddenly a circle of smoke emerged from the bastion and a dozen bullets whizzed past D’Artagnan and his two comrades.
“We know what’s what, eh?” D’Artagnan commented. “That bastion is substantially garrisoned. To stay here any longer is useless. Let us go back!”
And they beat a hasty retreat that might well be termed a flight.
As they reached the corner of the trench which was to serve them as a rampart, one of the guardsmen fell, shot through the chest. The other, unhurt, scampered back to camp. D’Artagnan, unwilling to abandon his wounded comrade, bent over him and sought to raise him to his feet. As he did so, two shots whistled past him, one shattering the head of the wounded guardsman, the other flattening itself against the rock within two inches of D’Artagnan.
The Gascon whirled round. Those shots, he knew, could not have come from the bastion, for the parapet protected him on that side. Was it the two soldiers who had abandoned him? Two soldiers—and two assassins with barrels gleaming through the hedge, right and left, in the last rays of the sun, two days ago? This time D’Artagnan resolved to face the issue and discover whom he was dealing with. He fell over his comrade’s corpse as though he too had been shot. Presently he saw two heads rise above an abandoned earthwork some thirty feet away. Obviously they belonged to the two privates who had hung back, then followed him only to try to kill him, trusting that his death might be ascribed to an enemy bullet.
For their part, thinking D’Artagnan might have been only wounded and could therefore return to camp and denounce them, they advanced to make sure and, if necessary, to dispatch him. Fortunately for D’Artagnan, when they saw him topple over, they neglected to reload their guns. When they were within ten paces, he sprang forward, sword in hand. The ruffians understood that they must either dispatch their man and return to camp or go over to the enemy. One of them seized his gun by the barrel and, wielding it as a club, aimed a smart blow at D’Artagnan. D’Artagnan dodged it by leaping aside, but in doing so, left the way clear for the other bandit to make for the bastion. The men of La Rochelle, knowing nothing of the rascal’s intentions, opened fire upon him and he fell, his shoulder broken.
Meanwhile D’Artagnan, sword in hand, soon mastered the second soldier, who had only his unloaded harquebus for weapon. D’Artagnan’s blade grazed the barrel of the useless firearm and pierced the ruffian’s thigh; D’Artagnan then pressed the point of his sword against his throat.
“Spare me, spare me, I beg you!” the ruffian cried. “I promise to tell you all.”
“Is your secret worth your life?”
“Ay, Monsieur, if life means anything to as pretty a gentleman as yourself at twenty years of age and handsome and brave into the bargain.”
“Speak quickly, swine! Who employed you to murder me?”
“A woman, Monsieur … I don’t know who … they call her Milady.…”
“If you don’t know her, how do you know her name?”
“My comrade knew her … he called her Milady … she made the bargain with him not with me … he even has a letter from her in his pocket … a letter you would give your eye-teeth to read, so he says.…”
“How did you let yourself in for this dirty job?”
“My friend made me an offer and I accepted.”
“On what terms?”
“A hundred louis, Monsieur.”
D’Artagnan laughed.
“A hundred louis, eh? I see Milady considers me valuable property. A hundred louis! I can see how that sum would tempt a pair of rascals like you.” D’Artagnan paused significantly. “Well, I understand how you came to accept such a dirty job and I shall spare your life—but on one condition.”
“What, Monsieur?” the man asked anxiously. D’Artagnan’s swordpoint, tickling his Adam’s apple, convinced him that all was not over.
“You must go fetch me the letter your comrade has in his pocket.”
“But that means certain death, Monsieur, death as certain as your sword at my throat! How can I go fetch that letter under fire from the bastion?”
“Take your choice, man. Either you fetch it or you die by my hands.”
“Ah, Monsieur, be generous, be merciful. In the name of that young lady you love … in the name of the lady you may believe to be dead but who is alive—” He edged away from D’Artagnan’s blade, propped himself on one knee in a gesture of supplication, leaning forward, head bowed, weak for loss of blood.
“How do you know there is a young woman I love? How do you know I believed her dead?”
“The letter, Monsieur! The letter my pal has in his pocket.”
“I must have that letter!” D’Artagnan insisted. “Come now, no more nonsense. However reluctant I am to soil my sword in the blood of a swine like yourself, I swear by my word as a gentleman—”
With which D’Artagnan made so fierce a gesture that the wounded man arose.
“Mercy, Monsieur, stop, stop!” Terror revived his courage. “I will go, I swear I will, so but you spare me!”
D’Artagnan took the man’s harquebus from him and drove him forward, prodding his back with the point of his sword. Slowly the fellow crept on, step by step, leaving a trail of blood behind him, inching his way toward his accomplice at a crawl, lest he be observed from the bastion. D’Artagnan, taking pity on him, said contemptuously:
“By God, man, I will show you the difference between a man of courage and a coward like yourself. Stay where you are; I shall fetch that letter.”
And with nimble step, his eye alert for every movement of the enemy, his progress using every accident of the terrain to advantage, the Gascon eventually reached his objective. Here he was faced with two ways of attaining his end. He could either search the corpse on the spot or carry it back, using it as a shield to protect himself and search it in the trench. Deciding in favor of the latter course, he had barely lifted the corpse to his shoulders when the enemy opened fire. A slight shock, the dull thud of three bullets penetrating into human flesh, a final gasp and a shudder of agony proved to D’Artagnan that his would-be assassin had just saved his life. D’Artagnan reached the trench safely and laid the corpse beside the wounded man. Then he went through his pockets. A leather wallet, a purse in which there was evidently a part of the sum he had received, a dice box and a pair of dice—such were the bandit’s heirlooms. D’Artagnan left box and dice where they had fallen, tossed the purse to the bandit’s confederate and wrenched open the wallet. Among various papers of no importance he came upon the following:
I regret to hear that you have lost all trace of the woman. She is now safe in a convent which you should never have allowed her to reach.
Try at least to get the man.
If you fail, remember that my hand stretches very far and that you shall pay dearly for the hundred louis I advanced.
There was no signature but the letter was obviously from Milady. Retaining it as evidence and sheltered in his trench, D’Artagnan questioned the wounded man.
“My friend and I, Monsieur,” the ruffian admitted, “we undertook a job to carry off a young woman who was meant to leave Paris by the Porte de La Vilette. But we stopped off to drink at a tavern so we missed the carriage by ten minutes and two drinks—”
“What were
you told to do with this woman?” D’Artagnan asked, trembling with anguish.
“We were to take her to a mansion in the Place Royale, Monsieur—”
“Yes, yes, to Milady’s!” D’Artagnan murmured as the whole pattern became clear to him.
First there was Milady with a lust for vengeance that impelled her to destroy not only him, but all those who loved him. How well informed she was about matters at Court! How easily she had discovered everything! But how could she have done so except through the Cardinal?
But there was also cause for joy. The Queen, having finally discovered the prison in which poor Madame Bonacieux was expiating her loyalty, had set her free from that prison. The mysteries of Madame Bonacieux’s letter to D’Artagnan and of her passage along the Chaillot road—a passage more like an apparition—were now crystal clear. As Athos had predicted, there was hope of finding Madame Bonacieux. No convent was impregnable; he had but to discover to what convent the Queen had committed her.
Immensely cheered, D’Artagnan turned to the wounded man who was observing him anxiously. Holding out his arm:
“Come, lad,” D’Artagnan urged, “I’ll not leave you like this. Take my arm or lean on my shoulder. I’ll trundle you back to camp.”
“Ay, Monsieur, thank you kindly.” The ruffian found it difficult to credit such magnanimity. “Back to camp to have me hanged, eh?”
“No, I give you my word. For the second time, I prefer to save your life.”
The other fell to his knees, seeking to kiss the feet of his savior, but D’Artagnan cut short these tokens of gratitude. There was no point in remaining so close to the enemy bastion even in a trench surmounted by a healthy parapet.
As D’Artagnan and the ruffian hobbled into camp they were received with surprise and delight, for the guardsman who had returned safely reported his four comrades as dead.
D’Artagnan explained the ruffian’s swordthrust by a sortie, the details of which he improvised with gusto; the other soldier’s death he explained quite as glibly. His recital occasioned a veritable triumph for him. For a day the whole army spoke of nothing else and the Duc d’Orléans sent D’Artagnan his personal congratulations.
The Modern Library Children's Classics Page 106
