Ten Years Later
Page 25
The hostelry of "Le Grand Monarque" was situated in a little streetparallel to the port without looking out upon the port itself. Somelanes cut--as steps cut the two parallels of the ladder--the two greatstraight lines of the port and the street. By these lanes passengerscame suddenly from the port into the street, or from the street on tothe port. D'Artagnan, arrived at the port, took one of these lanes, andcame out in front of the hostelry of "Le Grand Monarque." The momentwas well chosen and might remind D'Artagnan of his start in life atthe hostelry of the "Franc-Meunier" at Meung. Some sailors who had beenplaying at dice had started a quarrel, and were threatening each otherfuriously. The host, hostess, and two lads were watching with anxietythe circle of these angry gamblers, from the midst of which war seemedready to break forth, bristling with knives and hatchets. The play,nevertheless, was continued. A stone bench was occupied by two men, whoappeared thence to watch the door; four tables, placed at the back ofthe common chamber, were occupied by eight other individuals. Neitherthe men at the door, nor those at the tables, took any part in theplay or the quarrel. D'Artagnan recognized his ten men in these cold,indifferent spectators. The quarrel went on increasing. Every passionhas, like the sea, its tide which ascends and descends. Reaching theclimax of passion, one sailor overturned the table and the money whichwas upon it. The table fell, and the money rolled about. In an instantall belonging to the hostelry threw themselves upon the stakes, andmany a piece of silver was picked up by people who stole away whilst thesailors were scuffling with each other.
The two men on the bench and the eight at the tables, although theyseemed perfect strangers to each other, these ten men alone, we say,appeared to have agreed to remain impassible amidst the cries of furyand the chinking of money. Two only contented themselves with pushingwith their feet combatants who came under their table. Two others,rather than take part in this disturbance, buried their hands in theirpockets; and another two jumped upon the table they occupied, as peopledo to avoid being submerged by overflowing water.
"Come, come," said D'Artagnan to himself, not having lost one of thedetails we have related, "this is a very fair gathering--circumspect,calm, accustomed to disturbance, acquainted with blows! Peste! I havebeen lucky."
All at once his attention was called to a particular part of the room.The two men who had pushed the strugglers with their feet were assailedwith abuse by the sailors, who had become reconciled. One of them,half drunk with passion, and quite drunk with beer, came, in a menacingmanner, to demand of the shorter of these two sages by what right he hadtouched with his foot creatures of the good God, who were not dogs.And whilst putting this question, in order to make it more direct, heapplied his great fist to the nose of D'Artagnan's recruit.
This man became pale, without its being to be discerned whether hispallor arose from anger or from fear; seeing which, the sailor concludedit was from fear, and raised his fist with the manifest intention ofletting it fall upon the head of the stranger. But though the threatenedman did not appear to move, he dealt the sailor such a severe blow inthe stomach that he sent him rolling and howling to the other side ofthe room. At the same instant, rallied by the esprit de corps, all thecomrades of the conquered man fell upon the conqueror.
The latter, with the same coolness of which he had given proof, withoutcommitting the imprudence of touching his weapons, took up a beer-potwith a pewter-lid, and knocked down two or three of his assailants;then, as he was about to yield to numbers, the seven other silent menat the tables, who had not stirred, perceived that their cause was atstake, and came to the rescue. At the same time, the two indifferentspectators at the door turned round with frowning brows, indicatingtheir evident intention of taking the enemy in the rear, if the enemydid not cease their aggressions.
The host, his helpers, and two watchmen who were passing, and who fromcuriosity had penetrated too far into the room, were mixed up in thetumult and showered with blows. The Parisians hit like Cyclops, with anensemble and a tactic delightful to behold. At length, obliged to beat aretreat before superior numbers, they formed an intrenchment behind thelarge table, which they raised by main force; whilst the two others,arming themselves each with a trestle, and using it like a greatsledge-hammer, knocked down at a blow eight sailors upon whose headsthey had brought their monstrous catapult in play. The floor was alreadystrewn with wounded, and the room filled with cries and dust, whenD'Artagnan, satisfied with the test, advanced, sword in hand, andstriking with the pommel every head that came in his way, he uttered avigorous hola! which put an instantaneous end to the conflict. A greatbackflood directly took place from the center to the sides of the room,so that D'Artagnan found himself isolated and dominator.
"What is all this about?" then demanded he of the assembly, with themajestic tone of Neptune pronouncing the Quos ego.
At the very instant, at the first sound of his voice, to carry onthe Virgilian metaphor, D'Artagnan's recruits, recognizing each hissovereign lord, discontinued their plank-fighting and trestle blows. Ontheir side, the sailors, seeing that long naked sword, that martialair, and the agile arm which came to the rescue of their enemies, in theperson of a man who seemed accustomed to command, the sailors picked uptheir wounded and their pitchers. The Parisians wiped their brows, andviewed their leader with respect. D'Artagnan was loaded with thanks bythe host of "Le Grand Monarque." He received them like a man who knowsthat nothing is being offered that does not belong to him, and then saidhe would go and walk upon the port till supper was ready. Immediatelyeach of the recruits, who understood the summons, took his hat, brushedthe dust off his clothes, and followed D'Artagnan. But D'Artagnan whilstwalking and observing, took care not to stop; he directed his coursetowards the downs, and the ten men--surprised at finding themselvesgoing in the track of each other, uneasy at seeing on their right,on their left, and behind them, companions upon whom they had notreckoned--followed him, casting furtive glances at each other. It wasnot till he had arrived at the hollow part of the deepest down thatD'Artagnan, smiling to see them outdone, turned towards them, making afriendly sign with his hand.
"Eh! come, come, gentlemen," said he, "let us not devour each other; youare made to live together, to understand each other in all respects, andnot to devour one another."
Instantly all hesitation ceased; the men breathed as if they had beentaken out of a coffin, and examined each other complacently. After thisexamination they turned their eyes towards their leader, who had longbeen acquainted with the art of speaking to men of that class, and whoimprovised the following little speech, pronounced with an energy trulyGascon:
"Gentlemen, you all know who I am. I have engaged you from knowingyou to be brave, and willing to associate you with me in a gloriousenterprise. Imagine that in laboring for me you labor for the king. Ionly warn you that if you allow anything of this supposition to appear,I shall be forced to crack your skulls immediately, in the manner mostconvenient to me. You are not ignorant, gentlemen, that state secretsare like a mortal poison: as long as that poison is in its box and thebox is closed, it is not injurious; out of the box, it kills. Now drawnear and you shall know as much of this secret as I am able to tellyou." All drew close to him with an expression of curiosity. "Approach,"continued D'Artagnan, "and let not the bird which passes over our heads,the rabbit which sports on the downs, the fish which bounds from thewaters, hear us. Our business is to learn and to report to monsieurle surintendant of the finances to what extent English smuggling isinjurious to the French merchants. I shall enter every place, and seeeverything. We are poor Picard fishermen, thrown upon the coast by astorm. It is certain that we must sell fish, neither more nor less, liketrue fishermen. Only people might guess who we are, and might molestus; it is therefore necessary that we should be in a condition to defendourselves. And this is why I have selected men of spirit and courage. Weshall lead a steady life, and not incur much danger; seeing that wehave behind us a powerful protector, thanks to whom no embarrassmentis possible. One thing alone puzzles me; but I hope that
after a shortexplanation, you will relieve me from that difficulty. The thing whichpuzzles me is taking with me a crew of stupid fishermen, which crew willannoy me immensely, whilst if, by chance, there were among you any whohave seen the sea----"
"Oh! don't let that trouble you," said one of the recruits; "I was aprisoner among the pirates of Tunis three years, and can maneuver a boatlike an admiral."
"See," said D'Artagnan, "what an admirable thing chance is!" D'Artagnanpronounced these words with an indefinable tone of feigned bonhomie, forhe knew very well that the victim of pirates was an old corsair, and hadengaged him in consequence of that knowledge. But D'Artagnan never saidmore than there was need to say, in order to leave people in doubt.He paid himself with the explanation, and welcomed the effect, withoutappearing to be preoccupied with the cause.
"And I," said a second, "I, by chance, had an uncle who directed theworks of the port of La Rochelle. When quite a child, I played aboutthe boats, and I know how to handle an oar or a sail as well as the bestPonantais sailor." The latter did not lie much more than the first, forhe had rowed on board his majesty's galleys six years, at Ciotat. Twoothers were more frank: they confessed honestly that they had servedon board a vessel as soldiers on punishment, and did not blush for it.D'Artagnan found himself, then, the leader of ten men of war and foursailors, having at once a land army and a sea force, which would haveearned the pride of Planchet to its height, if Planchet had known thedetails.
Nothing was now left but arranging the general orders, and D'Artagnangave them with precision. He enjoined his men to be ready to set out forthe Hague, some following the coast which leads to Breskens, others theroad to Antwerp. The rendezvous was given, by calculating each day'smarch, a fortnight from that time upon the chief place at the Hague.D'Artagnan recommended his men to go in couples, as they liked best,from sympathy. He himself selected from among those with the leastdisreputable look, two guards whom he had formerly known, and whose onlyfaults were being drunkards and gamblers. These men had not entirelylost all ideas of civilization, and under proper garments their heartswould beat again. D'Artagnan, not to create any jealousy with theothers, made the rest go forward. He kept his two selected ones, clothedthem from his own wardrobe, and set out with them.
It was to these two, whom he seemed to honor with an absoluteconfidence, that D'Artagnan imparted a false secret, destined to securethe success of the expedition. He confessed to them that the object wasnot to learn to what extent the French merchants were injured by Englishsmuggling, but to learn how far French smuggling could annoy Englishtrade. These men appeared convinced; they were effectively so.D'Artagnan was quite sure that at the first debauch when thoroughlydrunk, one of the two would divulge the secret to the whole band. Hisgame appeared infallible.
A fortnight after all we have said had taken place at Calais, the wholetroop assembled at the Hague.
Then D'Artagnan perceived that all his men, with remarkableintelligence, had already travestied themselves into sailors, more orless ill-treated by the sea. D'Artagnan left them to sleep in a den inNewkerke street, whilst he lodged comfortably upon the Grand Canal. Helearned that the king of England had come back to his old ally, WilliamII. of Nassau, stadtholder of Holland. He learned also that the refusalof Louis XIV. had a little cooled the protection afforded him up to thattime, and in consequence he had gone to reside in a little village houseat Scheveningen, situated in the downs, on the sea-shore, about a leaguefrom the Hague.
There, it was said, the unfortunate banished king consoled himself inhis exile, by looking, with the melancholy peculiar to the princesof his race, at that immense North Sea, which separated him from hisEngland, as it had formerly separated Mary Stuart from France. Therebehind the trees of the beautiful wood of Scheveningen on the fine sandupon which grows the golden broom of the down, Charles II. vegetated asit did, more unfortunate, for he had life and thought, and he hoped anddespaired by turns.
D'Artagnan went once as far as Scheveningen, in order to be certain thatall was true that was said of the king. He beheld Charles II., pensiveand alone, coming out of a little door opening into the wood, andwalking on the beach in the setting sun, without even attracting theattention of the fishermen, who, on their return in the evening, drew,like the ancient mariners of the Archipelago, their barks up upon thesand of the shore.
D'Artagnan recognized the king; he saw him fix his melancholy look uponthe immense extent of the waters, and absorb upon his pale countenancethe red rays of the sun already cut by the black line of the horizon.Then Charles returned to his isolated abode, always alone, slow and sad,amusing himself with making the friable and moving sand creak beneathhis feet.
That very evening D'Artagnan hired for a thousand livres a fishing-boatworth four thousand. He paid a thousand livres down, and depositedthe three thousand with a Burgomaster, after which he brought on boardwithout their being seen, the ten men who formed his land army; and withthe rising tide, at three o'clock in the morning, he got into the opensea, maneuvering ostensibly with the four others, and depending upon thescience of his galley slave as upon that of the first pilot of the port.
CHAPTER 23. In which the Author, very unwillingly, is forced to write aLittle History