The Man in the Iron Mask
The Son of Biscarrat.
The Bretons of the Isle were very proud of this victory; Aramis did not them in the feeling.
“What will happen,” said he to Porthos, when was gone home, “will be that the anger of the king will be by the account of the resistance; and that these people will be or when they are taken, which cannot fail to take place.”
“From which it results, then,” said Porthos, “that what we have done is of not the use.”
“For the moment it may be,” the bishop, “for we have a from we shall learn what our are preparing to do.”
“Yes, let us the prisoner,” said Porthos, “and the means of making him speak are very simple. We are going to supper; we will him to join us; as he drinks he will talk.”
This was done. The officer was at uneasy, but on what of men he had to with. He gave, without having any of himself, all the of the and of D’Artagnan. He how, after that departure, the new leader of the had ordered a upon Belle-Isle. There his stopped. Aramis and Porthos a that their despair. No more to be now on D’Artagnan’s imagination—no in the event of defeat. Aramis, his interrogations, asked the what the of the doing with the of Belle-Isle.
“The orders are,” he, “to kill combat, or afterwards.”
Porthos and Aramis looked at each other again, and the color to their faces.
“I am too light for the gallows,” Aramis; “people like me are not hung.”
“And I am too heavy,” said Porthos; “people like me the cord.”
“I am sure,” said the prisoner, gallantly, “that we have you the exact of death you preferred.”
“A thousand thanks!” said Aramis, seriously. Porthos bowed.
“One more cup of to your health,” said he, himself. From one to another the with the officer was prolonged. He was an gentleman, and himself to be on by the of Aramis’s and Porthos’s bonhomie.
“Pardon me,” said he, “if I address a question to you; but men who are in their bottle have a clear right to themselves a little.”
“Address it!” Porthos; “address it!”
“Speak,” said Aramis.
“Were you not, gentlemen, in the of the late king?”
“Yes, monsieur, and the best of them, if you please,” said Porthos.
“That is true; I should say the best of all soldiers, messieurs, if I did not to the memory of my father.”
“Of your father?” Aramis.
“Do you know what my name is?”
“Ma foi! no, monsieur; but you can tell us, and—”
“I am called Georges de Biscarrat.”
“Oh!” Porthos, in his turn. “Biscarrat! Do you that name, Aramis?”
“Biscarrat!” the bishop. “It to me—”
“Try to recollect, monsieur,” said the officer.
“Pardieu! that won’t take me long,” said Porthos. “Biscarrat—called Cardinal—one of the four who us on the day on which we our with D’Artagnan, in hand.”
“Precisely, gentlemen.”
“The only one,” Aramis, eagerly, “we not scratch.”
“Consequently, a blade?” said the prisoner.
“That’s true! most true!” friends together. “Ma foi! Monsieur Biscarrat, we are to make the of such a man’s son.”
Biscarrat pressed the hands out by the two musketeers. Aramis looked at Porthos as much as to say, “Here is a man who will help us,” and without delay,—“Confess, monsieur,” said he, “that it is good to have once been a good man.”
“My father always said so, monsieur.”
“Confess, likewise, that it is a sad in which you yourself, of in with men to be or hung, and to learn that these men are old acquaintances, in fact, friends.”
“Oh! you are not for such a as that, and friends!” said the man, warmly.
“Bah! you said so yourself.”
“I said so just now, when I did not know you; but now that I know you, I say—you will this fate, if you wish!”
“How—if we wish?” Aramis, with as he looked alternately at the and Porthos.
“Provided,” Porthos, looking, in his turn, with intrepidity, at M. Biscarrat and the bishop—“provided nothing be of us.”
“Nothing at all will be of you, gentlemen,” the officer—“what should they ask of you? If they you they will kill you, that is a thing; try, then, gentlemen, to prevent their you.”
“I don’t think I am mistaken,” said Porthos, with dignity; “but it to me that if they want to us, they must come and us here.”
“In that you are perfectly right, my friend,” Aramis, with his looks the of Biscarrat, who had and constrained. “You wish, Monsieur de Biscarrat, to say something to us, to make us some overture, and you not—is that true?”
“Ah! and friends! it is by speaking I the watchword. But, hark! I a voice that mine by it.”
“Cannon!” said Porthos.
“Cannon and musketry, too!” the bishop.
On at a distance, among the rocks, these reports of a which they had ceased:
“What can that be?” asked Porthos.
“Eh! Pardieu!” Aramis; “that is just what I expected.”
“What is that?”
“That the attack by you was nothing but a feint; is not that true, monsieur? And your allowed themselves to be repulsed, you were of a landing on the other of the island.”
“Oh! several, monsieur.”
“We are lost, then,” said the of Vannes, quietly.
“Lost! that is possible,” the Seigneur de Pierrefonds, “but we are not taken or hung.” And so saying, he rose from the table, to the wall, and took his and pistols, which he with the of an old soldier who is preparing for battle, and who that life, in a great measure, upon the and right of his arms.
At the report of the cannon, at the news of the which might deliver up the to the troops, the to the to and from their leaders. Aramis, and downcast, two flambeaux, himself at the window which looked into the court, full of soldiers waiting for orders and succor.
“My friends,” said D’Herblay, in a and voice, “M. Fouquet, your protector, your friend, you father, has been by an order of the king, and into the Bastile.” A of came up to the window at which the stood, and him in a magnetic field.
“Avenge Monsieur Fouquet!” the most of his hearers, “death to the royalists!”
“No, my friends,” Aramis, solemnly; “no, my friends; no resistance. The king is master in his kingdom. The king is the of God. The king and God have M. Fouquet. Humble yourselves the hand of God. Love God and the king, who have M. Fouquet. But do not your seigneur, do not think of him. You would yourselves in vain—you, your and children, your property, your liberty. Lay your arms, my friends—lay your arms! since the king you so to do—and retire to your dwellings. It is I who ask you to do so; it is I who you to do so; it is I who now, in the hour of need, you to do so, in the name of M. Fouquet.”
The under the window a of anger and terror. “The soldiers of Louis XIV. have the island,” Aramis. “From this time it would no longer be a them and you—it would be a massacre. Begone, then, begone, and forget; this time I you, in the name of the Lord of Hosts!”
The retired slowly, submissive, silent.
“Ah! what have you just been saying, my friend?” said Porthos.
“Monsieur,” said Biscarrat to the bishop, “you may save all these inhabitants, but thus you will neither save your friend.”
“Monsieur de Biscarrat,” said the of Vannes, with a of and courtesy, “Monsieur de Biscarrat, be to your liberty.”
“I am very to do so, monsieur; but—”
“That would us a service, for when announcing to the king’s the of the islanders, you will obtain some for us on him of the manner in which that has been effected.”
“Grace!” Porthos with eyes, “what is the meaning of that word?”
Aramis touched the of his friend roughly, as he had been to do in the days of their youth, when he wanted to Porthos that he had committed, or was about to commit, a blunder. Porthos him, and was immediately.
“I will go, messieurs,” Biscarrat, a little at the word “grace” by the musketeer, of and to whom, but a minutes before, he had related with so much the with which his father had him.
“Go, then, Monsieur Biscarrat,” said Aramis, to him, “and at the of our entire gratitude.”
“But you, messieurs, you I think it an to call my friends, since you have been to accept that title, what will of you in the meantime?” the officer, very much at taking of the two of his father.
“We will wait here.”
“But, Dieu!—the order is and formal.”
“I am of Vannes, Monsieur de Biscarrat; and they no more shoot a than they a gentleman.”
“Ah! yes, monsieur—yes, monseigneur,” Biscarrat; “it is true, you are right, there is still that for you. Then, I will depart, I will repair to the of the expedition, the king’s lieutenant. Adieu! then, messieurs, or rather, to meet again, I hope.”
The officer, jumping upon a him by Aramis, in the direction of the of cannon, which, by the into the fort, had the of the two friends with their prisoner. Aramis the departure, and when left alone with Porthos:
“Well, do you comprehend?” said he.
“Ma foi! no.”
“Did not Biscarrat you here?”
“No; he is a fellow.”
“Yes; but the of Locmaria—is it necessary all the world should know it?”
“Ah! that is true, that is true; I comprehend. We are going to by the cavern.”
“If you please,” Aramis, gayly. “Forward, friend Porthos; our us. King Louis has not us—yet.”
