to consider my authority subordinate to another, therefore
after me, round me, and beneath me they still look for
something. It would result that if I were dead, whatever
might happen, my army would not be demoralized all at once;
it results, that if I choose to absent myself, for instance,
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
as it does please me to do sometimes, there would not be in
the camp the shadow of uneasiness or disorder. I am the
magnet — the sympathetic and natural strength of the
English. All those scattered irons that will be sent against
me I shall attract to myself. Lambert, at this moment,
commands eighteen thousand deserters, but I have never
mentioned that to my officers, you may easily suppose.
Nothing is more useful to an army than the expectation of a
coming battle; everybody is awake — everybody is on guard.
I tell you this that you may live in perfect security. Do
not be in a hurry, then, to cross the seas; within a week
there will be something fresh, either a battle or an
accomodation. Then, as you have judged me to be a honorable
man, and confided your secret to me, I have to thank you for
this confidence, and I shall come and pay you a visit or
send for you. Do not go before I send you word. I repeat the
request.”
“I promise you, general,” cried Athos, with a joy so great,
that in spite of all his circumspection, he could not
prevent its sparkling in his eyes.
Monk surprised this flash, and immediately extinguished it
by one of those silent smiles which always caused his
interlocutors to know they had made no inroad on his mind.
“Then, my lord, it is a week that you desire me to wait?”
“A week? yes, monsieur.”
“And during these days what shall I do?”
“If there should be a battle, keep at a distance from it, I
beseech you. I know the French delight in such amusements,
— you might take a fancy to see how we fight, and you might
receive some chance shot. Our Scotchmen are very bad
marksmen, and I do not wish that a worthy gentleman like you
should return to France wounded. Nor should I like to be
obliged myself, to send to your prince his million left here
by you, for then it would be said, and with some reason,
that I paid the Pretender to enable him to make war against
the parliament. Go, then, monsieur, and let it be done as
has been agreed upon.”
“Ah, my lord,” said Athos, “what joy it would give me to be
the first that penetrated to the noble heart which beats
beneath that cloak!”
“You think, then, that I have secrets,” said Monk, without
changing the half cheerful expression of his countenance.
“Why, monsieur, what secret can you expect to find in the
hollow head of a soldier? But it is getting late, and our
torch is almost out; let us call our man.”
“Hola!” cried Monk in French, approaching the stairs; “hola!
fisherman!”
The fisherman, benumbed by the cold night air, replied in a
hoarse voice, asking what they wanted of him.
“Go to the post,” said Monk, “and order a sergeant, in the
name of General Monk, to come here immediately.”
This was a commission easily performed; for the sergeant,
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
uneasy at the general’s being in that desolate abbey, had
drawn nearer by degrees, and was not much further off than
the fisherman. The general’s order was therefore heard by
him, and he hastened to obey it.
“Get a horse and two men,” said Monk.
“A horse and two men?” repeated the sergeant.
“Yes,” replied Monk. “Have you any means of getting a horse
with a pack-saddle or two paniers?”
“No doubt, at a hundred paces off, in the Scotch camp.”
“Very well.”
“What shall I do with the horse, general?”
“Look here.”
The sergeant descended the three steps which separated him
from Monk, and came into the vault.
“You see,” said Monk, “that gentleman yonder?”
“Yes, general.”
“And you see these two casks?”
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