“By no means, my dear Porthos; that man is a messenger of
General Cromwell; it would insure for us a poor reception, I
imagine, should it be announced to him that we had twisted
the neck of his confidant.”
“Nevertheless,” said Porthos, “I have always noticed that
Aramis gives good advice.”
“Listen,” returned D’Artagnan, “when our embassy is finished
—- ”
“Well?”
“If it brings us back to France —- ”
“Well?”
“Well, we shall see.”
At that moment the two friends reached the hotel, “Arms of
England,” where they supped with hearty appetite and then at
once proceeded to the port.
There they found a brig ready to set sail, upon the deck of
which they recognized Mordaunt walking up and down
impatiently.
“It is singular,” said D’Artagnan, whilst the boat was
taking them to the Standard, “it is astonishing how that
young man resembles some one I must have known, but who it
was I cannot yet remember.”
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Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
A few minutes later they were on board, but the embarkation
of the horses was a longer matter than that of the men, and
it was eight o’clock before they raised anchor.
The young man stamped impatiently and ordered all sail to be
spread.
Porthos, completely used up by three nights without sleep
and a journey of seventy leagues on horseback, retired to
his cabin and went to sleep.
D’Artagnan, overcoming his repugnance to Mordaunt, walked
with him upon the deck and invented a hundred stories to
make him talk.
Mousqueton was seasick.
55
The Scotchman.
And now our readers must leave the Standard to sail
peaceably, not toward London, where D’Artagnan and Porthos
believed they were going, but to Durham, whither Mordaunt
had been ordered to repair by the letter he had received
during his sojourn at Boulogne, and accompany us to the
royalist camp, on this side of the Tyne, near Newcastle.
There, placed between two rivers on the borders of Scotland,
but still on English soil, the tents of a little army
extended. It was midnight. Some Highlanders were listlessly
keeping watch. The moon, which was partially obscured by
heavy clouds, now and then lit up the muskets of the
sentinels, or silvered the walls, the roofs, and the spires
of the town that Charles I. had just surrendered to the
parliamentary troops, whilst Oxford and Newark still held
out for him in the hopes of coming to some arrangement.
At one of the extremities of the camp, near an immense tent,
in which the Scottish officers were holding a kind of
council, presided over by Lord Leven, their commander, a man
attired as a cavalier lay sleeping on the turf, his right
hand extended over his sword.
About fifty paces off, another man, also appareled as a
cavalier, was talking to a Scotch sentinel, and, though a
foreigner, he seemed to understand without much difficulty
the answers given in the broad Perthshire dialect.
As the town clock of Newcastle struck one the sleeper awoke,
and with all the gestures of a man rousing himself out of
deep sleep he looked attentively about him; perceiving that
he was alone he rose and making a little circuit passed
close to the cavalier who was speaking to the sentinel. The
former had no doubt finished his questions, for a moment
later he said good-night and carelessly followed the same
path taken by the first cavalier.
In the shadow of a tent the former was awaiting him.
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Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“Well, my dear friend?” said he, in as pure French as has
ever been uttered between Rouen and Tours.
“Well, my friend, there is not a moment to lose; we must let
the king know immediately.”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“It would take too long to tell you, besides, you will hear
it all directly and the least word dropped here might ruin
all. We must go and find Lord Winter.”
They both set off to the other end of the camp, but as it
did not cover more than a surface of five hundred feet they
quickly arrived at the tent they were looking for.
“Tony, is your master sleeping?” said one of the two