“Yes, nearly; but I have ceased to reckon time.”
“Excuse me; but what did your tutor tell you, to encourage you to work?”
“He used to say that a man was bound to make for himself in the world that fortune which Heaven had refused him at his birth. He added, that, being a poor obscure orphan, I had no one but myself to look to; and that nobody either did or ever would take any interest in me. I was, then, in the hall I have spoken of, asleep from fatigue in fencing. My tutor was in his room on the first floor, just over me. Suddenly I heard him exclaim; and then he called, ‘Perronnette! Perronnette!’ It was my nurse whom he called.”
“Yes; I know it,” said Aramis. “Continue, Monseigneur!”
“Very likely she was in the garden; for my tutor came hastily downstairs. I rose, anxious at seeing him anxious. He opened the garden door, still crying out, ‘Perronnette! Perronnette!’ The windows of the hall looked into the court. The shutters were closed; but through a chink in them I saw my tutor draw near a large well, which was almost directly under the windows of his study. He stooped over the brim, looked into the well, again cried out, and made wild and affrighted gestures. Where I was, I could not only see, but hear; and see and hear I did.”
“Go on, I pray you!” said Aramis.
“Dame Perronnette came running up, hearing the governor’s cries. He went to meet her, took her by the arm, and drew her quickly towards the edge; after which, as they both bent over it together, ‘Look, look!’ cried he; ‘what a misfortune!’ ‘Calm yourself, calm yourself,’ said Perronnette; ‘what is the matter?’ ‘The letter!’ he exclaimed; ‘do you see that letter?’ to the bottom of the well. ‘What letter?’ she cried. ‘The letter you see down there,- the last letter from the Queen.’ At this word I trembled. My tutor- he who passed for my father, he who was continually recommending to me modesty and humility- in correspondence with the Queen! ‘The Queen’s last letter!’ cried Perronnette, without showing other astonishment than at seeing this letter at the bottom of the well; ‘but how came it there?’ ‘A chance, Dame Perronnette,- a singular chance. I was entering my room; and on opening the door, the window too being open, a puff of air came suddenly and carried off this paper,- this letter from the Queen; I darted after it, and gained the window just in time to see it flutter a moment in the breeze and disappear down the well.’ ‘Well,’ said Dame Perronnette; ‘and if the letter has fallen into the well, ‘t is all the same as if it were burned; and as the Queen burns all her letters every time she comes-‘ ‘Every time she comes!’ So this lady who came every month was the Queen,” said the prisoner.
“Yes,” nodded Aramis.
“‘Doubtless, doubtless,’ continued the old gentleman; ‘but this letter contained instructions,- how can I follow them?’ ‘Write immediately to her; give her a plain account of the accident, and the Queen will no doubt write you another letter in place of this.’ ‘Oh! the Queen would never believe the story,’ said the good gentleman, shaking his head; ‘she will imagine that I want to keep this letter instead of giving it up like the rest, so as to have a hold over her. She is so distrustful, and M. de Mazarin so- This devil of an Italian is capable of having us poisoned at the first breath of suspicion.'”
Aramis almost imperceptibly smiled.
“‘You know, Dame Perronnette, they are both so suspicious in all that concerns Philippe.’ ‘Philippe’ was the name they gave me,” said the prisoner. ‘Well, ‘t is no use hesitating,’ said Dame Perronnette; ‘somebody must go down the well.’ ‘Of course; so that the person who goes down may read the paper as he is coming up.’ ‘But let us choose some villager who cannot read, and then you will be at ease.’ ‘Granted; but will not any one who descends guess that a paper must be important for which we risk a man’s life? However, you have given me an idea, Dame Perronnette; somebody shall go down the well, but that somebody shall be myself.’ But at this notion Dame Perronnette lamented and cried in such a manner, and so implored the old nobleman, with tears in her eyes, that he promised her to obtain a ladder long enough to reach down, while she went in search of some stout-hearted youth, whom she was to persuade that a jewel had fallen into the well, and that this jewel was wrapped in a paper. ‘And as paper,’ remarked my preceptor, ‘naturally unfolds in water, the young man would not be surprised at finding nothing, after all, but the letter wide open.’ ‘But perhaps the writing will be already effaced by that time,’ said Dame Perronnette. ‘No consequence, provided we secure the letter. On returning it to the Queen, she will see at once that we have not betrayed her; and consequently, as we shall not rouse the distrust of Mazarin, we shall have nothing to fear from him.’ Having come to this resolution, they parted. I pushed back the shutter, and seeing that my tutor was about to re-enter, threw myself on my couch, in a confusion of brain caused by all I had just heard. My tutor opened the door a few moments after, and thinking I was asleep, gently closed it again. As soon as ever it was shut, I rose, and listening heard the sound of retiring footsteps. Then I returned to the shutter, and saw my tutor and Dame Perronnette go out together. I was alone in the house. They had hardly closed the gate before I sprang from the window and ran to the well. Then, just as my tutor had leaned over, so leaned I. Something white and luminous glistened in the green and quivering ripples of the water. The brilliant disk fascinated and allured me; my eyes became fixed, and I could hardly breathe. The well seemed to draw me in with its large mouth and icy breath; and I thought I read, at the bottom of the water, characters of fire traced upon the letter the Queen had touched. Then, scarcely knowing what I was about, and urged on by one of those instinctive impulses which drive men upon their destruction, I made fast one end of the rope to the bottom of the well-curb; I left the bucket hanging about three feet under water,- at the same time taking infinite pains not to disturb that coveted letter, which was beginning to change its white tint for a greenish hue,- proof enough that it was sinking,- and then, with a piece of wet canvas protecting my hands, slid down into the abyss. When I saw myself hanging over the dark pool, when I saw the sky lessening above my head, a cold shudder came over me, I was seized with giddiness, and the hair rose on my head; but my strong will mastered all. I gained the water, and at once plunged into it, holding on by one hand, while I immersed the other and seized the precious paper, which, alas! came in two in my grasp. I concealed the fragments in my coat, and helping myself with my feet against the side of the pit, and clinging on with my hands, agile and vigorous as I was, and above all pressed for time, I regained the brink, drenching it as I touched it with the water that streamed from all the lower part of my body. Once out of the well with my prize I rushed into the sunlight, and took refuge in a kind of shrubbery at the bottom of the garden. As I entered my hiding-place, the bell which resounded when the gate was opened, rang. It was my tutor returning. I had but just time. I calculated that it would take ten minutes before he would gain my place of concealment, even if, guessing where I was, he came straight to it; and twenty if he were obliged to look for me. But this was time enough to allow me to read the cherished letter, whose fragments I hastened to unite again. The writing was already fading, but I managed to decipher it all.”