The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas (web based ebook reader .TXT) 📖

At the extremity of the mole, against which the furious sea beats at the evening tide, two men, holding each other by the arm, were conversing in an animated and expansive tone, without the possibility of any other human being hearing their words, borne away, as they were, one by one, by the gusts of wind, with the white foam swept from the crests of the waves. The sun had just gone down in the vast sheet of the crimsoned ocean, like a gigantic crucible. From time to time, one of these men, turning towards the east, cast an anxious, inquiring look over the sea. The other, interrogating the features of his companion, seemed to seek for information in his looks. Then, both silent, busied with dismal thoughts, they resumed their walk. Every one has already perceived that these two men were our proscribed heroes, Porthos and Aramis, who had taken refuge in Belle-Isle, since the ruin of their hopes, since the discomfiture of the colossal schemes of M. d’Herblay.

“If is of no use your saying anything to the contrary, my dear Aramis,” repeated Porthos, inhaling vigorously the salt breeze with which he charged his massive chest, “It is of no use, Aramis. The disappearance of all the fishing-boats that went out two days ago is not an ordinary circumstance. There has been no storm at sea; the weather has been constantly calm, not even the lightest gale; and even if we had had a tempest, all our boats would not have foundered. I repeat, it is strange. This complete disappearance astonishes me, I tell you.”

“True,” murmured Aramis. “You are right, friend Porthos; it is true, there is something strange in it.”

“And further,” added Porthos, whose ideas the assent of the bishop of Vannes seemed to enlarge; “and, further, do you not observe that if the boats have perished, not a single plank has washed ashore?”

“I have remarked it as well as yourself.”

“And do you not think it strange that the two only boats we had left in the whole island, and which I sent in search of the others—”

Aramis here interrupted his companion by a cry, and by so sudden a movement, that Porthos stopped as if he were stupefied. “What do you say, Porthos? What!—You have sent the two boats—”

“In search of the others! Yes, to be sure I have,” replied Porthos, calmly.

“Unhappy man! What have you done? Then we are indeed lost,” cried the bishop.

“Lost!—what did you say?” exclaimed the terrified Porthos. “How lost, Aramis? How are we lost?”

Aramis bit his lips. “Nothing! nothing! Your pardon, I meant to say—”

“What?”

“That if we were inclined—if we took a fancy to make an excursion by sea, we could not.”

“Very good! and why should that vex you? A precious pleasure, ma foi! For my part, I don’t regret it at all. What I regret is certainly not the more or less amusement we can find at Belle-Isle: what I regret, Aramis, is Pierrefonds; Bracieux; le Vallon; beautiful France! Here, we are not in France, my dear friend; we are—I know not where. Oh! I tell you, in full sincerity of soul, and your affection will excuse my frankness, but I declare to you I am not happy at Belle-Isle. No; in good truth, I am not happy!”

Aramis breathed a long, but stifled sigh. “Dear friend,” replied he: “that is why it is so sad a thing you have sent the two boats we had left in search of the boats which disappeared two days ago. If you had not sent them away, we would have departed.”

“‘Departed!’ And the orders, Aramis?”

“What orders?”

“Parbleu! Why, the orders you have been constantly, in and out of season, repeating to me—that we were to hold Belle-Isle against the usurper. You know very well!”

“That is true!” murmured Aramis again.

“You see, then, plainly, my friend, that we could not depart; and that the sending away of the boats in search of the others cannot prove prejudicial to us in the very least.”

Aramis was silent; and his vague glances, luminous as that of an albatross, hovered for a long time over the sea, interrogating space, seeking to pierce the very horizon.

“With all that, Aramis,” continued Porthos, who adhered to his idea, and that the more closely from the bishop having apparently endorsed it,—“with all that, you give me no explanation about what can have happened to these unfortunate boats. I am assailed by cries and complaints whichever way I go. The children cry to see the desolation of the women, as if I could restore the absent husbands and fathers. What do you suppose, my friend,