off, only the doors are locked.”
“That is a slight difficulty,” said Porthos, “and a good
push with the shoulders —- ”
“For God’s sake, Porthos my friend, reserve your feats of
strength, or they will not have, when needed, the honor they
deserve. Have you not heard that some one is coming here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that some one will open the doors.”
“But, my dear fellow, if that some one recognizes us, if
that some one cries out, we are lost; for you don’t propose,
I imagine, that I shall kill that man of the church. That
might do if we were dealing with Englishmen or Germans.”
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Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“Oh, may God keep me from it, and you, too!” said
D’Artagnan. “The young king would, perhaps, show us some
gratitude; but the queen would never forgive us, and it is
she whom we have to consider. And then, besides, the useless
blood! never! no, never! I have my plan; let me carry it out
and we shall laugh.”
“So much the better,” said Porthos; “I feel some need of
it.”
“Hush!” said D’Artagnan; “the some one is coming.”
The sound of a light step was heard in the vestibule. The
hinges of the door creaked and a man appeared in the dress
of a cavalier, wrapped in a brown cloak, with a lantern in
one hand and a large beaver hat pulled down over his eyes.
Porthos effaced himself against the wall, but he could not
render himself invisible; and the man in the cloak said to
him, giving him his lantern:
“Light the lamp which hangs from the ceiling.”
Then addressing D’Artagnan:
“You know the watchword?” he said.
“Ja!” replied the Gascon, determined to confine himself to
this specimen of the German tongue.
“Tedesco!” answered the cavalier; “va bene.”
And advancing toward the door opposite to that by which he
came in, he opened it and disappeared behind it, shutting it
as he went.
“Now,” asked Porthos, “what are we to do?”
“Now we shall make use of your shoulder, friend Porthos, if
this door proves to be locked. Everything in its proper
time, and all comes right to those who know how to wait
patiently. But first barricade the first door well; then we
will follow yonder cavalier.”
The two friends set to work and crowded the space before the
door with all the furniture in the room, as not only to make
the passage impassable, but so to block the door that by no
means could it open inward.
“There!” said D’Artagnan, “we can’t be overtaken. Come!
forward!”
85
The Oubliettes of Cardinal Mazarin.
At first, on arriving at the door through which Mazarin had
passed, D’Artagnan tried in vain to open it, but on the
powerful shoulder of Porthos being applied to one of the
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Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
panels, which gave way, D’Artagnan introduced the point of
his sword between the bolt and the staple of the lock. The
bolt gave way and the door opened.
“As I told you, everything can be attained, Porthos, women
and doors, by proceeding with gentleness.”
“You’re a great moralist, and that’s the fact,” said
Porthos.
They entered; behind a glass window, by the light of the
cardinal’s lantern, which had been placed on the floor in
the midst of the gallery, they saw the orange and
pomegranate trees of the Castle of Rueil, in long lines,
forming one great alley and two smaller side alleys.
“No cardinal!” said D’Artagnan, “but only his lantern; where
the devil, then, is he?”
Exploring, however, one of the side wings of the gallery,
after making a sign to Porthos to explore the other, he saw,
all at once, at his left, a tub containing an orange tree,
which had been pushed out of its place and in its place an
open aperture.
Ten men would have found difficulty in moving that tub, but
by some mechanical contrivance it had turned with the
flagstone on which it rested.
D’Artagnan, as we have said, perceived a hole in that place
and in this hole the steps of a winding staircase.
He called Porthos to look at it.