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

“No,” replied the musketeer, hastily, “no.”

“Why?”

“The fresh air—”

“Come, admit at once that you arrest me,” said the superintendent to the captain.

“Never!” said the latter.

“You intend to look after me, then?”

“Yes, monseigneur, I do, upon my honor.”

“Upon your honor—ah! that is quite another thing! So I am to be arrested in my own house.”

“Do not say such a thing.”

“On the contrary, I will proclaim it aloud.”

“If you do so, I shall be compelled to request you to be silent.”

“Very good! Violence towards me, and in my own house, too.”

“We do not seem to understand one another at all. Stay a moment; there is a chess-board there; we will have a game, if you have no objections.”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan, I am in disgrace, then?”

“Not at all; but—”

“I am prohibited, I suppose, from withdrawing from your sight.”

“I do not understand a word you are saying, monseigneur; and if you wish me to withdraw, tell me so.”

“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, your mode of action is enough to drive me mad; I was almost sinking for want of sleep, but you have completely awakened me.”

“I shall never forgive myself, I am sure; and if you wish to reconcile me with myself, why, go to sleep in your bed in my presence; and I shall be delighted.”

“I am under surveillance, I see.”

“I will leave the room if you say any such thing.”

“You are beyond my comprehension.”

“Good night, monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan, as he pretended to withdraw.

Fouquet ran after him. “I will not lie down,” he said. “Seriously, and since you refuse to treat me as a man, and since you finesse with me, I will try and set you at bay, as a hunter does a wild boar.”

“Bah!” cried D’Artagnan, pretending to smile.

“I shall order my horses, and set off for Paris,” said Fouquet, sounding the captain of the musketeers.

“If that be the case, monseigneur, it is very difficult.”

“You will arrest me, then?”

“No, but I shall go along with you.”

“That is quite sufficient, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” returned Fouquet, coldly. “It was not for nothing you acquired your reputation as a man of intelligence and resource; but with me all this is quite superfluous. Let us come to the point. Do me a service. Why do you arrest me? What have I done?”

“Oh! I know nothing about what you may have done; but I do not arrest you—this evening, at least!”

“This evening!” said Fouquet, turning pale, “but to-morrow?”

“It is not to-morrow just yet, monseigneur. Who can ever answer for the morrow?”

“Quick, quick, captain! let me speak to M. d’Herblay.”

“Alas! that is quite impossible, monseigneur. I have strict orders to see that you hold no communication with any one.”

“With M. d’Herblay, captain—with your friend!”

“Monseigneur, is M. d’Herblay the only person with whom you ought to be prevented holding any communication?”

Fouquet colored, and then assuming an air of resignation, he said: “You are right, monsieur; you have taught me a lesson I ought not to have evoked. A fallen man cannot assert his right to anything, even from those whose fortunes he may have made; for a still stronger reason, he cannot claim anything from those to whom he may never have had the happiness of doing a service.”

“Monseigneur!”

“It is perfectly true, Monsieur d’Artagnan; you have always acted in the most admirable manner towards me—in such a manner, indeed, as most becomes the man who is destined to arrest me. You, at least, have never asked me anything.”

“Monsieur,” replied the Gascon, touched by his eloquent and noble tone of grief, “will you—I ask it as a favor—pledge me your word as a man of honor that you will not leave this room?”

“What is the use of it, dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, since you keep watch and ward over me? Do you suppose I should contend against the most valiant sword in the kingdom?”

“It is not that, at all, monseigneur; but that I am going to look for M. d’Herblay, and, consequently, to leave you alone.”

Fouquet uttered a cry of delight and surprise.

“To look for M. d’Herblay! to leave me alone!” he exclaimed, clasping his hands together.

“Which is M. d’Herblay’s room? The blue room is it not?”

“Yes, my friend, yes.”

“Your friend! thank you for that word, monseigneur; you confer it upon me to-day, at least, if you have never done so before.”

“Ah! you have saved me.”

“It will take a good ten minutes to go from hence to the blue room, and to return?” said D’Artagnan.

“Nearly so.”

“And then to wake Aramis, who sleeps very soundly, when he is asleep, I put that down at another five minutes; making a total of fifteen minutes’ absence. And now, monseigneur, give me your word that you will not in any way attempt to make your escape, and that when I return I shall find you here again.”

“I give it, monsieur,” replied Fouquet, with an expression of the warmest and deepest gratitude.

D’Artagnan disappeared. Fouquet looked at him as he quitted the room, waited with a feverish impatience until the door was closed behind him, and as soon as it was shut, flew to his keys, opened two or three secret doors concealed in various articles of furniture in the room, looked vainly for certain papers, which doubtless he had left at Saint-Mande, and which he seemed to regret not having found in them; then hurriedly seizing hold of letters, contracts, papers, writings, he heaped them up into a pile, which he burnt in the extremest haste upon the marble hearth of the fireplace, not even taking time to draw from the interior of it the vases and pots of flowers with which it was filled. As soon as he had finished, like a man who has just escaped an imminent danger, and whose strength abandons him as