The Man in the Iron Mask

by Alexandre Dumas

  Chapter LI. Porthos's Epitaph.

  Aramis, silent and sad as ice, trembling like a timid child, aroseshivering from the stone. A Christian does not walk on tombs. But,though capable of standing, he was not capable of walking. It mightbe said 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 to the canoe. Then, havinglaid him down upon the bench near the rudder, they took to their oars,preferring this to hoisting sail, which might betray them.

  On all that leveled surface of the ancient grotto of Locmaria, onesingle hillock attracted their eyes. Aramis never removed his from it;and, at a distance out in the sea, in proportion as the shore receded,that menacing proud mass of rock seemed to draw itself up, as formerlyPorthos used to draw himself up, raising a smiling, yet invincible headtowards heaven, like that of his dear old honest valiant friend, thestrongest of the four, yet the first dead. Strange destiny of these menof brass! The most simple of heart allied to the most crafty; strengthof body guided by subtlety of mind; and in the decisive moment, whenvigor alone could save mind and body, a stone, a rock, a vile materialweight, triumphed over manly strength, and falling upon the body, droveout 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 sufferby its terrible solidarity. Noble Porthos! of what good now are thychateaux overflowing with sumptuous furniture, forests overflowing withgame, lakes overflowing with fish, cellars overflowing with wealth! Ofwhat service to thee now thy lackeys in brilliant liveries, and in themidst of them Mousqueton, proud of the power delegated by thee! Oh,noble Porthos! careful heaper-up of treasure, was it worth while tolabor to sweeten and gild life, to come upon a desert shore, surroundedby the cries of seagulls, and lay thyself, with broken bones, beneatha torpid stone? Was it worth while, in short, noble Porthos, to heap somuch gold, and not have even the distich of a poor poet engraven uponthy monument? Valiant Porthos! he still, without doubt, sleeps, lost,forgotten, beneath the rock the shepherds of the heath take for thegigantic abode of a _dolmen_. And so many twining branches, so manymosses, bent by the bitter wind of ocean, so many lichens solder thysepulcher to earth, that no passers-by will imagine such a block ofgranite could ever have been supported by the shoulders of one man.

  Aramis, still pale, still icy-cold, his heart upon his lips, looked,even till, with the last ray of daylight, the shore faded on thehorizon. Not a word escaped him, not a sigh rose from his deep breast.The superstitious Bretons looked upon him, trembling. Such silence wasnot that of a man, it was the silence of a statue. In the meantime, withthe first gray lines that lighted up the heavens, the canoe hoisted itslittle sail, which, swelling with the kisses of the breeze, and carryingthem rapidly from the coast, made bravest way towards Spain, across thedreaded Gulf of Gascony, so rife with storms. But scarcely half an hourafter the sail had been hoisted, the rowers became inactive, recliningon their benches, and, making an eye-shade with their hands, pointed outto each other a white spot which appeared on the horizon as motionlessas a gull rocked by the viewless respiration of the waves. But thatwhich might have appeared motionless to ordinary eyes was moving at aquick rate to the experienced eye of the sailor; that which appearedstationary upon the ocean was cutting a rapid way through it. For sometime, seeing the profound torpor in which their master was plunged,they did not dare to rouse him, and satisfied themselves with exchangingtheir conjectures in whispers. Aramis, in fact, so vigilant, soactive--Aramis, whose eye, like that of the lynx, watched withoutceasing, and saw better by night than by day--Aramis seemed to sleepin this despair of soul. An hour passed thus, during which daylightgradually disappeared, but during which also the sail in view gained soswiftly on the bark, that Goenne, one of the three sailors, ventured tosay 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 upon the surface ofthe waters should cease to be a guide to the eye of the enemy pursuingthem. On the part of the ship in sight, on the contrary, two more smallsails were run up at the extremities of the masts. Unfortunately, it wasthe time of the finest and longest days of the year, and the moon, inall her brilliancy, succeeded inauspicious daylight. The _balancelle_,which was pursuing the little bark before the wind, had then still halfan hour of twilight, and a whole night almost as light as day.

  "Monseigneur! monseigneur! we are lost!" said the captain. "Look! theysee us plainly, though we have lowered sail."

  "That is not to be wondered at," murmured one of the sailors, "sincethey say that, by the aid of the devil, the Paris-folk have fabricatedinstruments with which they see as well at a distance as near, by nightas well as by day."

  Aramis took a telescope from the bottom of the boat, focussed 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 on 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, hadat a single bound cleared the whole distance. But, on withdrawingthe instrument from his eye, he saw that, except the way which the_balancelle_ had been able to make during that brief instant, it wasstill at the same distance.

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

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

  "What!--they see us!" said Yves. "Impossible!"

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

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

  Aramis shrugged his shoulders.

  The skipper lifted the glass to his eye. "Oh! monseigneur," said he, "itis a miracle--there they are; 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 givesan order; they are rolling a piece of cannon forward--they are loadingit--pointing it. _Misericorde!_ they are firing at us!"

  And by a mechanical movement, the skipper put aside the telescope, andthe pursuing ship, relegated to the horizon, appeared again in its trueaspect. The vessel was still at the distance of nearly a league, but themaneuver sighted thus was not less real. A light cloud of smoke appearedbeneath the sails, more blue than they, and spreading like a floweropening; then, at about a mile from the little canoe, they saw the balltake the crown off two or three waves, dig a white furrow in the sea,and disappear at the end of it, as inoffensive as the stone with which,in play, a boy makes ducks and drakes. It was at once a menace and awarning.

  "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 prepared 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 fly,they will sink us?"

  "But, perhaps," the patron ventured to say, "perhaps under cover ofnight, we could escape them."

  "Oh!" said Aramis, "they have, no doubt, Greek fire with which tolighten their own course and ours likewise."

  At the same moment, as if the vessel was responsive to the appeal ofAramis, a second cloud of smoke mounted slowly to the heavens, and fromthe bosom of that cloud sparkled an arrow of flame, which
described aparabola like a rainbow, and fell into the sea, where it continued toburn, illuminating a space of a quarter of a league in diameter.

  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, ceasingto make way, rocked motionless upon the summits of the waves. Night cameon, but still the ship drew nearer. It might be imagined it redoubledits speed with darkness. From time to time, as a vulture rears its headout of its nest, the formidable Greek fire darted from its sides, andcast its flame upon the ocean like an incandescent snowfall. At lastit came within musket-shot. All the men were on deck, arms in hand; thecannoniers were at their guns, the matches burning. It might be thoughtthey were about to board a frigate and to fight a crew superior innumber to their own, not to attempt the capture of a canoe manned byfour people.

  "Surrender!" cried the commander of the _balancelle_, with the aid ofhis speaking-trumpet.

  The sailors looked at Aramis. Aramis made a sign with his head. Yveswaved a white cloth at the end of a gaff. This was like striking theirflag. The pursuer came on like a race-horse. It launched a fresh Greekfire, which fell within twenty paces of the little canoe, and threw alight upon them as white as sunshine.

  "At the first sign of resistance," cried the commander of the_balancelle_, "fire!" The soldiers brought their muskets to the present.

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

  "Alive, alive, captain!" cried one excited soldier, "they must be takenalive."

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

  Aramis stared imperceptibly. For an instant his eye was fixed upon thedepths of the ocean, illumined by the last flashes of the Greek fire,which ran along the sides of the waves, played on the crests likeplumes, and rendered still darker and more terrible the gulfs theycovered.

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

  "Yes."

  "What are your orders?"

  "Accept!"

  "But you, monseigneur?"

  Aramis leaned still more forward, and dipped the ends of his long whitefingers in the green limpid waters of the sea, to which he turned withsmiles 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 except 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 barktowards the sea--drew himself up, and with a flashing eye, and a smileupon his lips, "Throw out the ladder, messieurs," said he, as if thecommand had belonged to him. He was obeyed. When Aramis, seizing therope ladder, walked straight up to the commander, with a firm step,looked at him earnestly, made a sign to him with his hand, a mysteriousand unknown sign at sight of which the officer turned pale, trembled,and bowed his head, the sailors were profoundly astonished. Without aword Aramis then raised his hand to the eyes of the commander and showedhim the collet of a ring he wore on the ring-finger of his left hand.And while making this sign Aramis, draped in cold and haughty majesty,had the air of an emperor giving his hand to be kissed. The commandant,who for a moment had raised his head, bowed a second time with marks ofthe most profound respect. Then stretching his hand out, in his turn,towards the poop, that is to say, towards his own cabin, he drew back toallow Aramis to go first. The three Bretons, who had come on board aftertheir bishop, looked at each other, stupefied. The crew were awed tosilence. Five minutes after, the commander called the second lieutenant,who returned immediately, ordering the head to be put towards Corunna.Whilst this order was being executed, Aramis reappeared upon the deck,and took a seat near the _bastingage_. Night had fallen; the moon hadnot yet risen, yet Aramis looked incessantly towards Belle-Isle. Yvesthen approached the captain, who had returned to take his post in thestern, and said, in a low and humble voice, "What course are we tofollow, captain?"

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

  Aramis passed the night leaning upon the _bastingage_. Yves, onapproaching him next morning, remarked that "the night must have beena very damp one, for the wood on which the bishop's head had rested wassoaked with dew." Who knows?--that dew was, it may be, the first tearsthat had ever fallen from the eyes of Aramis!

  What epitaph would have been worth that, good Porthos?