“I thought I recognized him, and was not mistaken. Short and
stout.”
“Who is it?” they all asked together in a low tone.
“General Oliver Cromwell.”
The four friends looked at one another.
“And the other?” asked Athos.
“Thin and lanky.”
“The executioner,” said D’Artagnan and Aramis at the same
time.
“I can see nothing but his back,” resumed Grimaud. “But
wait. He is moving; and if he has taken off his mask I shall
be able to see. Ah —- ”
And as if struck in the heart he let go the hook and dropped
with a groan.
“Did you see him?” they all asked.
Yes,” said Grimaud, with his hair standing on end.
“The thin, spare man?”
“Yes.”
“The executioner, in short?” asked Aramis.
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“Yes.”
“And who is it?” said Porthos.
“He — he — is —- ” murmured Grimaud, pale as a ghost and
seizing his master’s hand.
“Who? He?” asked Athos.
“Mordaunt,” replied Grimaud.
D’Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis uttered a cry of joy.
Athos stepped back and passed his hand across his brow.
“Fatality!” he muttered.
68
Cromwell’s House.
It was, in fact, Mordaunt whom D’Artagnan had followed,
without knowing it. On entering the house he had taken off
his mask and imitation beard, then, mounting a staircase,
had opened a door, and in a room lighted by a single lamp
found himself face to face with a man seated behind a desk.
This man was Cromwell.
Cromwell had two or three of these retreats in London,
unknown except to the most intimate of his friends. Mordaunt
was among these.
“It is you, Mordaunt,” he said. “You are late.”
“General, I wished to see the ceremony to the end, which
delayed me.”
“Ah! I scarcely thought you were so curious as that.”
“I am always curious to see the downfall of your honor’s
enemies, and he was not among the least of them. But you,
general, were you not at Whitehall?”
“No,” said Cromwell.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Have you had any account of it?”
“None. I have been here since the morning. I only know that
there was a conspiracy to rescue the king.”
“Ah, you knew that?” said Mordaunt.
“It matters little. Four men, disguised as workmen, were to
get the king out of prison and take him to Greenwich, where
a vessel was waiting.”
“And knowing all that, your honor remained here, far from
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the city, tranquil and inactive.”
“Tranquil, yes,” replied Cromwell. “But who told you I was
inactive?”
“But — if the plot had succeeded?”
“I wished it to do so.”
“I thought your excellence considered the death of Charles
I. as a misfortune necessary to the welfare of England.”
“Yes, his death; but it would have been more seemly not upon
the scaffold.”
“Why so?” asked Mordaunt.
Cromwell smiled. “Because it could have been said that I had
had him condemned for the sake of justice and had let him
escape out of pity.”
“But if he had escaped?”
“Impossible; my precautions were taken.”
“And does your honor know the four men who undertook to
rescue him?”
“The four Frenchmen, of whom two were sent by the queen to
her husband and two by Mazarin to me.”
“And do you think Mazarin commissioned them to act as they
have done?”
“It is possible. But he will not avow it.”
“How so?”
“Because they failed.”
“Your honor gave me two of these Frenchmen when they were
only guilty of fighting for Charles I. Now that they are
guilty of a conspiracy against England will your honor give
me all four of them?”
“Take them,” said Cromwell.
Mordaunt bowed with a smile of triumphant ferocity.
“Did the people shout at all?” Cromwell asked.
“Very little, except `Long live Cromwell!'”
“Where were you placed?”
Mordaunt tried for a moment to read in the general’s face if
this was simply a useless question, or whether he knew
everything. But his piercing eyes could by no means
penetrate the sombre depths of Cromwell’s.
“I was so situated as to hear and see everything,” he
answered.
It was now Cromwell’s turn to look fixedly at Mordaunt, and