The Vicomte de Bragelonne

by Alexandre Dumas

  CHAPTER CXXV.

  THE EPITAPH OF PORTHOS.

  Aramis, silent, icy, trembling like a timid child, aroseshivering from the stone. A Christian does not walk upon tombs. Butthough capable of standing, he was not capable of walking. It might besaid that something of dead Porthos had just died within him. HisBretons surrounded him: Aramis yielded to their kind exertions, and thethree sailors, lifting him up, carried him into the canoe. Then, havinglaid him down upon the bench near the rudder, they took to their oars,preferring to get off by rowing to hoisting a sail, which might betraythem.

  Of all that leveled surface of the ancient grotto of Locmaria, of allthat flattened shore, one single little hillock attracted their eyes.Aramis never removed his from it; and, at a distance out in the sea, inproportion as the shore receded, the menacing and proud mass of rockseemed to draw itself up, as formerly Porthos used to draw himself up,and raise a smiling and invincible head toward heaven, like that of thehonest and valiant friend, the strongest of the four, and yet the firstdead. Strange destiny of these men of brass! The most simple of heartallied to the most crafty; strength of body guided by subtlety of mind;and in the decisive moment, when vigor alone could save mind and body, astone, a rock, a vile and material weight, triumphed over vigor, andfalling upon the body, drove out the mind.

  Worthy Porthos! born to help other men, always ready to sacrificehimself for the safety of the weak, as if God had only given himstrength for that purpose: when dying he only thought he was carryingout the conditions of his compact with Aramis, a compact, however, whichAramis alone had drawn up, and which Porthos had only known to suffer byits terrible solidarity. Noble Porthos! of what good are the chateauxoverflowing with sumptuous furniture, the forests overflowing with game,the lakes overflowing with fish, the cellars overflowing with wealth! Ofwhat good are the lackeys in brilliant liveries, and in the midst ofthem Mousqueton, proud of the power delegated by thee! Oh! noblePorthos! careful heaper up of treasures, was it worth while to labor tosweeten and gild life, to come upon a desert shore, to the cries of seabirds, and lay thyself, with broken bones, beneath a cold stone! Was itworth while, in short, noble Porthos, to heap so much gold, and not haveeven the distich of a poor poet engraven upon thy monument! ValiantPorthos! He still, without doubt, sleeps, lost, forgotten, beneath therock which the shepherds of the heath take for the gigantic abode of adolmen. And so many twining branches, so many mosses, caressed by thebitter wind of the ocean, so many vivacious lichens have soldered thesepulcher to the earth, that the passenger will never imagine that sucha block of granite can ever have been supported by the shoulders of oneman.

  Aramis, still pale, still icy, his heart upon his lips, Aramis looked,even till, with the last ray of daylight, the shore faded on thehorizon. Not a word escaped his lips, not a sigh rose from his deepbreast. The superstitious Bretons looked at him trembling. The silencewas not of a man, it was of a statue. In the meantime, with the firstgray lines that descended from the heavens, the canoe had hoisted itslittle sail, which swelling with the kisses of the breeze, and carryingthem rapidly from the coast, made brave way with its head toward Spain,across the terrible gulf of Gascony, so rife with tempests. But scarcelyhalf an hour after the sail had been hoisted, the rowers becameinactive, reclining upon their benches, and making an eye-shade withtheir hands, pointed out to each other a white spot which appeared onthe horizon, as motionless as is in appearance a gull rocked by theinsensible respiration of the waves. But that which might have appearedmotionless to the ordinary eyes was moving at a quick rate to theexperienced eye of the sailor; that which appeared stationary on theocean was cutting a rapid way through it. For some time, seeing theprofound torpor in which their master was plunged, they did not dare torouse him, and satisfied themselves with exchanging their conjectures ina low, disturbed voice. Aramis, in fact, so vigilant, so active--Aramis,whose eye, like that of a lynx, watched without ceasing, and saw betterby night than by day--Aramis seemed to sleep in the despair of his soul.An hour passed thus, during which daylight gradually disappeared, butduring which also the sail in view gained so swiftly on the bark thatGoenne, one of the three sailors, ventured to say aloud:

  "Monseigneur, we are being chased!"

  Aramis made no reply; the ship still gained upon them. Then, of theirown accord, two of the sailors, by the direction of the patron Yves,lowered the sail, in order that that single point, which appeared abovethe surface of the waters, should cease to be a guide to the eye of theenemy who was pursuing them. On the part of the ship in sight, on thecontrary, two more small sails were run up at the extremities of themasts. Unfortunately, it was the time of the finest and longest days ofthe year, and the moon, in all her brilliancy, succeeded to thisinauspicious daylight. The balancelle, which was pursuing the littlebark before the wind, had then still half an hour of twilight, and awhole night almost as light as day.

  "Monseigneur! monseigneur! we are lost!" said the patron; "look! theysee us although we have lowered our sail."

  "That is not to be wondered at," murmured one of the sailors, "sincethey say that, by the aid of the devil, the people of the cities havefabricated instruments with which they see as well at a distance asnear, by night as well as by day."

  Aramis took a telescope from the bottom of the boat, arranged itsilently, and passing it to the sailor: "Here," said he, "look!" Thesailor hesitated.

  "Don't be alarmed," said the bishop, "there is no sin in it; and ifthere is any sin, I will take it upon myself."

  The sailor lifted the glass to his eye and uttered a cry. He believedthat the vessel, which appeared to be distant about cannon-shot, hadsuddenly and at a single bound cleared the distance. But, on withdrawingthe instrument from his eye, he saw that, except the way which thebalancelle had been able to make during that short instant, it was stillat the same distance.

  "So," murmured the sailor, "they can see us as we see them."

  "They see us," said Aramis, and sank again into his impassibility.

  "How--they see us!" said the patron Yves, "impossible!"

  "Well, patron, look yourself," said the sailor. And he passed to him theglass.

  "Monseigneur assures me that the devil has nothing to do with this?"asked the patron.

  Aramis shrugged his shoulders.

  The patron lifted the glass to his eye. "Oh! monseigneur," said he, "itis a miracle--they are there; it seems as if I were going to touch them.Twenty-five men at least! Ah! I see the captain forward. He holds aglass like this, and is looking at us. Ah! he turns round, and gives anorder; they are rolling a piece of cannon forward--they are chargingit--they are pointing it.--Misericorde! they are firing at us!"

  And by a mechanical movement, the patron took the glass off, and theobjects, sent back to the horizon, appeared again in their true aspect.The vessel was still at the distance of nearly a league, but themaneuver announced by the patron was not less real. A light cloud ofsmoke appeared under the sails, more blue than they, and spreading likea flower opening; then, at about a mile from the little canoe, they sawthe ball take the crown off two or three waves, dig a white furrow inthe sea, and disappear at the end of that furrow, as inoffensive as thestone with which, at play, a boy makes ducks and drakes. That was atonce a menace and a warning.

  "What is to be done?" asked the patron.

  "They will sink us!" said Goenne, "give us absolution, monseigneur!" Andthe sailors fell on their knees before him.

  "You forget that they can see you," said he.

  "That is true!" said the sailors, ashamed of their weakness. "Give usyour orders, monseigneur, we are ready to die for you."

  "Let us wait," said Aramis.

  "How--let us wait?"

  "Yes; do you not see, as you just now said, that if we endeavor to flythey will sink us?"

  "But, perhaps," the patron ventured to say, "perhaps, by the favor ofthe night we could escape them."

  "Oh!" said Aramis, "they have, little doubt, some Greek fire to lightentheir own course and ours likewi
se."

  At the same moment, as if the little vessel wished to reply to theappeal of Aramis, a second cloud of smoke mounted slowly to the heavens,and from the bosom of that cloud sparkled an arrow of flame, whichdescribed its parabola like a rainbow, and fell into the sea, where itcontinued to burn, illuminating a space of a quarter of a league indiameter.

  The Bretons looked at each other in terror. "You see plainly," saidAramis, "it will be better to wait for them."

  The oars dropped from the hands of the sailors, and the bark, ceasing tomake way, rocked motionless on the summits of the waves. Night came on,but the vessel still approached nearer. It might be said it redoubledits speed with the darkness. From time to time, as a bloody-neckedvulture rears its head out of its nest, the formidable Greek fire dartedfrom its sides, and cast its flame into the ocean like an incandescentsnow. At last it came within musket-shot. All the men were on deck, armsin hand; the cannoneers were at their guns, the matches were burning. Itmight be thought they were about to board a frigate and to combat a crewsuperior in number to their own, and not to take a canoe manned by fourpeople.

  "Surrender!" cried the commander of the balancelle, with the aid of hisspeaking trumpet.

  The sailors looked at Aramis. Aramis made a sign with his head. Thepatron Yves waved a white cloth at the end of a gaff. This was likestriking their flag. The vessel came on like a racehorse. It launched afresh Greek fire which fell within twenty paces of the little canoe, andthrew a stronger light upon them than the most ardent ray of the suncould have done.

  "At the first sign of resistance," cried the commander of thebalancelle, "fire!" And the soldiers brought their muskets to thepresent.

  "Did not we say we surrendered?" said the patron Yves.

  "Living! living! captain!" cried some highly exalted soldiers, "theymust be taken living!"

  "Well, yes--living," said the captain. Then turning toward the Bretons,"Your lives are all safe, my friends!" cried he, "except the Chevalierd'Herblay."

  Aramis started imperceptibly. For an instant his eye was fixed upon thedepths of the ocean enlightened by the last flashes of the Greek fire,flashes which ran along the sides of the waves, played upon their crestslike plumes, and rendered still more dark, more mysterious and moreterrible the abysses they covered.

  "Do you hear, monseigneur?" said the sailors.

  "Yes."

  "What are your orders?"

  "Accept!"

  "But you, monseigneur?"

  Aramis leaned still more forward, and played with the ends of his longwhite fingers with the green water of the sea, to which he turnedsmiling as to a friend.

  "Accept!" repeated he.

  "We accept," repeated the sailors; "but what security have we?"

  "The word of a gentleman," said the officer. "By my rank and by my nameI swear, that all but M. le Chevalier d'Herblay shall have their livesspared. I am lieutenant of the king's frigate the _Pomona_, and my nameis Louis Constant de Pressigny."

  With a rapid gesture, Aramis--already bent over the side of the barktoward the sea--with a rapid gesture, Aramis raised his head, drewhimself up, and with a flashing eye, and a smile upon his lips--"Throwout the ladder, messieurs," said he, as if the command had belonged tohim. He was obeyed. Then Aramis, seizing the rope-ladder, instead of theterror which was expected to be displayed upon his countenance, thesurprise of the sailors of the balancelle was great, when they saw himwalk straight up to the commander, with a firm step, look at himearnestly, make a sign to him with his hand, a mysterious and unknownsign, at the sight of which the officer turned pale, trembled, and bowedhis head. Without saving a word, Aramis then raised his hand close tothe eyes of the commander, and showed him the collet of a ring which hewore on the ring-finger of his left hand. And while making this sign,Aramis, draped in cold, silent, and haughty majesty, had the air of anemperor giving his hand to be kissed. The commandant, who for a momenthad raised his head, bowed a second time with marks of the most profoundrespect. Then stretching his hand out, in his turn toward the poop, thatis to say, toward his own cabin, he drew back to allow Aramis to gofirst. The three Bretons, who had come on board after their bishop,looked at each other, stupefied. The crew were struck with silence. Fiveminutes after, the commander called the second lieutenant, who returnedimmediately, ordering the head to be put toward Corunna. While the givenorder was being executed, Aramis reappeared upon the deck, and took aseat near the _bastingage_. The night had fallen, the moon had not yetrisen, and yet Aramis looked incessantly toward Belle-Isle. Yves thenapproached the captain, who had returned to take his post in the stern,and said, in a low and humble voice, "What course are we to follow,captain?"

  "We take what course monseigneur pleases," replied the officer.

  Aramis passed the night leaning upon the _bastingage_. Yves, onapproaching him the next morning, remarked, that "the night must havebeen very humid, for the wood upon which the bishop's head had restedwas soaked with dew." Who knows!--that dew was, perhaps, the first tearsthat had ever fallen from the eyes of Aramis!

  What epitaph would have been worth that? Good Porthos!