Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845.

"Sir," said Raoul, with his usual politeness, "have you taken orders?"

"Why do you ask?" said the stranger, in a tone so abrupt as to be scarcely civil.

"For our information," replied the Count de Guiche haughtily.

The stranger touched his mule with his heel, and moved onwards. With a bound of his horse, De Guiche placed himself before him, blocking up the road. "Answer, sir" said he. "The question was polite put, and deserves a reply."

"I am not obliged, I suppose, to inform the first comer who and what I am."

With considerable difficulty De Guiche repressed a violent inclination to break the bones of the insolent monk.

"In the first place," said he, "we will tell you who we are. My friend here is the Viscount of Braguelonne, and I am the Count de Guiche. It is no mere caprice that induces us to question you; we are seeking spiritual aid for a dying man. If you are a priest, I call upon you in the name of humanity to afford him the assistance he implores; if, on the other hand, you are not in orders, I warn you to expect the chastisement which your impertinence merits."

The monk's pale face became livid, and a smile of so strange an expression overspread it, that Raoul, whose eyes were fixed upon him, felt an involuntary and unaccountable uneasiness.

"He is some spy of the Imperialists," said the viscount, putting his hand upon his pistols. A stern and menacing glance from the monk replied to the accusation.

"Well, sir," said De Guiche, "will you answer?"

"I am a priest," replied the young man, his face resuming its former calm inexpressiveness.

"Then, holy father," said Raoul, letting his pistol fall back into the holster, and giving a tone of respect to his words, "since you are a priest, you have now an opportunity of exercising your sacred functions. A man wounded to death is at the little inn which you will soon find upon your road, and he implores the assistance of one of God's ministers."

"I will go to him," said the monk calmly, setting his mule in motion.

"If you do not, sir," said De Guiche, "remember that our horses will soon overtake your mule, that we possess sufficient influence to have you seized wherever you go, and that then your trial will be very short. A tree and a rope are to be found every where."

The eyes of the monk emitted an angry spark, but he merely repeated the words, "I will go to him," and rode on.

"Let us follow," said De Guiche; "it will be the surest plan."

"I was about to propose it," said Raoul. And the young men followed the monk at pistol-shot distance.

On arriving in sight of the roadside tavern, they saw their servants approaching it from the opposite direction, leading their horses, and carrying the wounded man. On perceiving the monk, an expression of joy illuminated the countenance of the sufferer.

"And now," said Raoul, "we have done all we can for you, and must hasten onwards to join the prince's army. There is to be a battle to-morrow, it is said, and we would not miss it."

The host had got everything ready, a bed, lint and bandages, and a messenger had been dispatched to Lens, which was the nearest town, to bring back a surgeon.

"You will follow us," said Raoul to the servants, "as soon as you have conveyed this person to his room. A horseman will arrive here in the course of the afternoon," added he to the innkeeper, "and will probably enquire if the Viscount de Braguelonne has passed this way. He is one of my attendants, and his name is Grimaud. You will tell him that I have passed, and shall sleep at Cambrin."

By this time the litter had reached the door of the inn. The monk got off his mule, ordered it to be put in the stable without unsaddling, and entered the house. The two young men rode away, followed by the benedictions of the wounded man.

The litter was just being carried into the inn, when the hostess hurried forward to receive her guests. On catching sight of the sufferer, she seized her husband's arm with an exclamation of terror.

"Well," said the host, "what is the matter?"

"Do you not recognise him?" said the woman, pointing to the wounded man.

"Recognise him! No – yet – surely I remember the face. Can it be?" —

"The former headsman of Bethune," said his wife, completing the sentence.

"The headsman of Bethune!" repeated the young monk, recoiling with a look and gesture of marked repugnance.

The chief of Raoul's attendants perceived the disgust with which the monk heard the quality of his penitent.

"Sir," he said, "although he may have been an executioner, or even if he still be so, it is no reason for refusing him the consolations of religion. Render him the service he claims at your hands, and you will have the more merit in the sight of God."

The monk made no reply, but entered a room on the ground-floor, in which the servants were now placing the wounded man upon a bed. As he did so, every one left the apartment, and the penitent remained alone with his confessor. The presence of Raoul's and De Guiche's followers being no longer required, the latter remounted their horses, and set off at a sharp trot to rejoin their masters, who were already out of sight.

They had been gone but a few minutes, when a single horseman rode up to the door of the inn.

"What is your pleasure, sir?" said the host, still pale and aghast at the discovery his wife had made.

"A feed for my horse, and a bottle of wine for myself," was the reply. "Have you seen a young gentleman pass by," continued the stranger, "mounted on a chestnut horse, and followed by two attendants."

"The Viscount de Braguelonne?" said the innkeeper.

"The same."

"Then you are Monsieur Grimaud?"

The traveller nodded assent.

"Your master was here not half an hour ago," said the host. "He has ridden on, and will sleep at Cambrin."

Grimaud sat down at a table, wiped the dust and perspiration from his face, poured out a glass of wine, and drank in silence. He was about to fill his glass a second time, when a loud shrill cry was heard, issuing from the apartment in which the monk and the patient were shut up together. Grimaud started to his feet.

"What is that?" exclaimed he.

"From the wounded man's room," replied the host.

"What wounded man?"

"The former headsman of Bethune, who has been set upon and sorely hurt by Spanish partisans. The Viscount de Braguelonne rescued and brought him hither, and he is now confessing himself to an Augustine friar. He seems to suffer terribly."

"The headsman of Bethune," muttered Grimaud, apparently striving to recollect something. "A man of fifty-five or sixty years of age, tall and powerful; of dark complexion, with black hair and beard?"

"The same; excepting that his beard has become grey, and his hair white. Do you know him?"

"I have seen him once," replied Grimaud gloomily.

At this moment another cry was heard, less loud than the first, but followed by a long deep groan. Grimaud and the innkeeper looked at each other.

"It is like the cry of a man who is being murdered," said the latter.

"We must see what it is," said Grimaud.

Although slow to speak, Grimaud was prompt in action. He rushed to the door, and shook it violently; it was secured on the inner side.

"Open the door instantly," cried he, "or I break it down."

No answer was returned. Grimaud looked around him, and perceived a heavy crowbar standing in a corner of the passage. This he seized hold of, and before the host could interfere, the door was burst open. The room was inundated with blood, which was trickling from the mattrass; there was a hoarse rattling in the wounded man's throat; the monk had disappeared. Grimaud hurried to an open window which looked upon the court-yard.

"He has escaped through this," said he.

"Do you think so?" said the host. "Boy, see if the monk's mule is still in the stable."

"It is gone," was the answer.

Grimaud approached the bed, and gazed upon the harsh and strongly marked features of the wounded man.

"Is he still alive?" said the host.

Without replying, Grimaud opened the man's doublet to feel if his heart beat, and at the same time the innkeeper approached the bed. Suddenly both started back with an exclamation of horror. A poniard was buried to the hilt in the left breast of the headsman.

What had passed between the priest and his penitent was as follows.

It has been seen that the monk showed himself little disposed to delay his journey in order to receive the confession of the wounded man; so little, indeed, that he would probably have endeavoured to avoid it by flight, had not the menaces of the Count de Guiche, and afterwards the presence of the servants, or perhaps his own reflections, induced him to perform to the end the duties of his sacred office.

On finding himself alone with the sufferer, he approached the pillow of the latter. The headsman examined him with one of those rapid, anxious looks peculiar to dying men, and made a movement of surprise.

"You are very young, holy father," said he.

"Those who wear my dress have no age," replied the monk severely.

"Alas, good father, speak to me more kindly! I need a friend in these my last moments."

"Do you suffer much?" asked the monk.

"Yes, but in soul rather than in body."

"We will save your soul," said the young man; "but, tell me, are you really the executioner of Bethune, as these people say?"

"I was," replied the wounded man hurriedly, as though fearful that the acknowledgment of his degrading profession might deprive him of the assistance of which he stood in such imminent need. "I was, but I am so no longer; I gave up my office many years ago. I am still obliged to appear at executions, but I no longer officiate. Heaven forbid that I should!"

"You have a horror of your profession, then?"

The headsman groaned.

"So long as I only struck in the name of the law and of justice," said he, "my conscience was at rest, and my sleep untroubled; but since that terrible night when I served as instrument of a private vengeance, and raised my sword with hatred against one of God's creatures – since that night" —

The headsman paused, and shook his head despairingly.

"Speak on," said the monk, who had seated himself on the edge of the bed, and began to take an interest in a confession that commenced so strangely.

"Ah!" exclaimed the dying man, "what efforts have I not made to stifle my remorse by twenty years of good works! I have exposed my own existence to preserve that of others, and have saved human lives in exchange for the one I had unwarrantably taken. I frequented the churches, sought out the poor to console and relieve them; those who once avoided became accustomed to see me, and some have even loved me. But God has not pardoned me; for, do what I will, the memory of my crime pursues me, and each night in my dreams the spectre of that woman stands menacing before me."

"A woman! Was it a woman, then, whom you assassinated?" cried the monk.

"And you, too," exclaimed the headsman – "you, too, use that word, assassinated. It was an assassination, then, not an execution, and I am a murderer!"

He shut his eyes and uttered a hollow moan. The monk feared probably that he would die without completing his confession, for he hastened to console him.

"Go on," said he. "I cannot yet know how far you are guilty. When I have heard all, I will decide. Tell me, then, how you came to commit this deed."

"It was night," resumed the headsman, in faltering accents: "a man came to my house to seek me, and showed me an order. I followed him. Four other gentlemen were waiting for him; they put a mask upon my face, and led me with them. I was resolved to resist, if what they required me to do appeared unjust. We rode on for five or six leagues almost without uttering a word; at last we halted – and they showed me, through the window of a cottage, a woman seated at a table. 'That,' said they, 'is she whom you are to decapitate.'"

"Horrible!" exclaimed the monk. "And you obeyed?"

"Father, that woman was a monster; she had poisoned her husband, had tried to assassinate her brother-in-law, who was one of the men that now accompanied me; she had murdered a young girl whom she thought her rival; and, before leaving England, had instigated the assassination of the king's favourite."

"Buckingham?" exclaimed the monk.

"Yes, Buckingham – that was the name."

"She was an Englishwoman, then?"

"No – a Frenchwoman, but she had been married to an English nobleman."

The monk grew pale, passed his hand across his forehead, and, rising from the bed, approached the door and bolted it. The headsman thought that he was leaving him, and implored him to return.

"I am here," said the monk, resuming his seat. "Who were the five men who accompanied you?"

"One was an Englishman; the other four were French, and wore the uniform of the mousquetaires."

"Their names?" demanded the monk.

"I do not know them. But the four Frenchmen called the Englishman 'My lord.'"

"And the woman; was she young?"

"Young and beautiful, most beautiful, as she kneeled before me imploring mercy. I have never been able to understand how I had the courage to strike off that pale and lovely head."

The monk seemed to be under the influence of some violent emotion; his limbs trembled, and he appeared unable to speak. At last, mastering himself by a strong effort – "The name of this woman?" said he.

"I do not know it. She had been married twice, once in France and once in England."

"And you killed her!" said the monk, vehemently. "You served as instrument to those dastardly villains who dared not kill her themselves. You had no pity on her youth, her beauty, her weakness! You killed her!"

"Alas! holy father," said the headsman, "this woman concealed, under the exterior of an angel, the vices of a demon; and when I saw her, when I remembered all that I had myself suffered from her" —

"You? And what could she have done to you?"

"She had seduced my brother, who was a priest, had fled with him from his convent, lost him both body and soul."

"Your brother?"

"Yes, my brother had been her first lover. Oh, my father! do not look at me thus. I am very guilty, then! You cannot pardon me!"

The monk composed his features, which had assumed a terrible expression during the latter part of the dying man's confession.

"I will pardon you," said he, "if you tell me all. Since your brother was her first lover, you must know her maiden name. Tell it me."

"Oh, my God! my God!" exclaimed the headsman – "I am dying! Absolution, holy father! absolution!"

"Her name," said the monk, "and I give it to you."

The headsman, who was convulsed with agony, both physical and moral, seemed scarcely able to speak. The monk bent over him as if to catch the smallest sound he should utter.

"Her name," said he, "or no absolution." The dying man seemed to collect all his strength.

"Anne de Bueil," murmured he.

"Anne de Bueil!" repeated the monk, rising to his feet and lifting his hands to heaven, "Anne de Bueil! Did you say Anne de Bueil?"

"Yes, yes, that was her name; and now absolve me, for I am dying."

"I absolve you?" cried the monk, with a laugh that made the sufferer's hair stand on end; "I absolve you? I am no priest!"

"You are no priest!" cried the headsman; "but who and what are you, then?"

"I will tell you, miscreant! I am John de Winter, and that woman" —

"And that woman" – gasped the executioner.

"Was my mother!"

The headsman uttered a shriek, the long and terrible one which Grimaud and the innkeeper had heard.

"Oh, pardon, pardon!" murmured he – "forgive me, if not in God's name, at least in your own. If not as a priest, as a son."

"Pardon you!" replied the pretended monk; "pardon you! God may perhaps do it, but I never will. Die, wretch, die! unabsolved, despairing, and accursed." And, drawing a dagger from under his gown, he plunged it into the breast of the headsman. "Take that," said he, "for my absolution."

It was then that the second cry, followed by a long moan, had been uttered. The headsman, who had partially raised himself, fell back upon the bed. The monk, without withdrawing his dagger from the wound, ran to the window, opened it, jumped out into the little flower-garden below, and hurried to the stable. Leading out his mule, he plunged into the thickest part of the adjacent forest, stripped off his monk's garb, took a horseman's dress out of his valise, and put it on. Then, making all haste to the nearest post-house, he took a horse, and continued with the utmost speed his journey to Paris.

The headsman lives long enough to inform Grimaud of what has passed; and Grimaud, who was present at the decapitation of Lady de Winter, returns to Paris, to put Athos and his friends on their guard against the vengeance of her son. Mordaunt, alias De Winter, is one of Cromwell's most devoted and unscrupulous agents, and is proceeding to the French capital to negotiate with Mazarine on the part of the Parliamentary general. Guided by what he has heard from the executioner of Bethune, he discovers who the men are by whose order his mother was beheaded, and he vows their destruction. The four friends soon afterwards meet in England, whither D'Artagnan and Porthos have been sent on a mission to Cromwell; whilst Athos and Aramis have repaired thither to strive to prop the falling fortunes of Charles the First. We cannot say much in favour of that portion of the book of which the scene is laid on English ground. M. Dumas is much happier in his delineations of Frondeurs and Mazarinists than of Puritans and Cavaliers; and his account of Charles the First, and of the scenes prior to his execution, is horribly Frenchified.

After numerous narrow escapes from Mordaunt, who pursues them with unrelenting rancour, and succeeds in assassinating their friend and his uncle, Lord de Winter, the four guardsmen embark on board a small vessel to return to France. Mordaunt discovers this, gets the captain and crew out of the way, replaces them by one Groslow and other creatures of his own, and conceals himself on board. His plan is, so soon as the vessel is a short distance out at sea, to escape in a boat with his confederates, after firing a train communicating with some barrels of powder in the hold. There is some improbability in this part of the story; but gunpowder plots have special privilege of absurdity. The guardsmen, however, discover the mischief that is brewing against them, just in time to escape through the cabin windows, and swim off to the boat, which is towing astern.

Scarcely had D'Artagnan cut the rope that attached the boat to the ship, when a shrill whistle was heard proceeding from the latter, which, as it moved on whilst the boat remained stationary, was already beginning to be lost to view in the darkness. At the same moment a lantern was brought upon deck, and lit up the figures of the crew. Suddenly a great outcry was heard; and just then the clouds that covered the heavens split and parted, and the silver light of the moon fell upon the white sails and dark rigging of the vessel. Persons were seen running about the deck in bewilderment and confusion; and Mordaunt himself, carrying a torch in his hand, appeared upon the poop.

At the appointed hour, Groslow had collected his men, and Mordaunt, after listening at the door of the cabin, and concluding from the silence which reigned that his intended victims were buried in sleep, had hurried to the powder barrels and set fire to the train. Whilst he was doing this, Groslow and his sailors were preparing to leave the ship.

"Haul in the rope," said the former, "and bring the boat along-side."

One of the sailors seized the rope and pulled it. It came to him without resistance.

"The cable is cut!" exclaimed the man; "the boat is gone."

"The boat gone!" repeated Groslow; "impossible!"

"It is nevertheless true," returned the sailor. "See here; nothing in our wake, and here is the end of the rope."

It was then that Groslow uttered the cry which the guardsmen heard from their boat.

"What is the matter?" demanded Mordaunt, emerging from the hatchway, his torch in his hand, and rushing towards the stern.

"The matter is, that your enemies have escaped you. They have cut the rope, and saved themselves in the boat."

With a single bound Mordaunt was at the cabin-door, which he burst open with his foot. It was empty.

"We will follow them," said Groslow; "they cannot be far off. We will give them the stem; sail right over them."

"Yes; but the powder – I have fired the train!"

"Damnation!" roared Groslow, rushing to the hatchway. "Perhaps there is still time."

A horrible laugh and a frightful blasphemy were Mordaunt's reply; and then, his features distorted by rage and disappointed hate rather than by fear, he hurled his torch into the sea, and precipitated himself after it. At the same moment, and before Groslow had reached the powder barrels, the ship opened like the crater of a volcano, a gush of fire rose from it with a noise like that of fifty pieces of artillery, and blazing fragments of the doomed vessel were seen careering through the air in every direction. It lasted but an instant; the red glow that had lit up the sea for miles around vanished; the burning fragments fell hissing into the water; and, with the exception of a vibration in the air, all was calm as before. The felucca had disappeared; Groslow and his men were annihilated.

Our four guardsmen had witnessed this terrible spectacle with mute awe and horror, and when it was over, they remained for a moment downcast and silent. Porthos and D'Artagnan, who had each taken an oar, forgot to use them, and sat gazing at their companions, whilst the boat rocked to and fro at the will of the waves.

"Ma foi!" said Aramis, who was the first to break the pause, "this time I think we are fairly rid of him."

"Help, gentlemen, help!" just then cried a voice that came sweeping in piteous accents over the troubled surface of the sea. "Help! for heaven's sake, help!"

The guardsmen looked at each other. Athos shuddered.

"It is his voice!" said he.

All recognised the voice, and strained their eyes in the direction in which the felucca had disappeared. Presently a man was seen swimming vigorously towards them. Athos extended his arm, pointing him out to his companions.

"Yes, yes," said D'Artagnan; "I see him."

"Will nothing kill him?" said Porthos.

Aramis leaned forward and spoke in a whisper to D'Artagnan. Mordaunt advanced a few yards, and raised one hand out of the water in sign of distress.

"Pity! gentlemen," cried he; "pity and mercy! My strength is leaving me, and I am about to sink."

The tone of agony in which these words were spoken awakened a feeling of compassion in the breast of Athos.

"Unhappy man!" he murmured.

"Good!" said D'Artagnan. "I like to see you pity him. On my word, I think he is swimming towards us. Does he suppose we are going to take him in? Row, Porthos, row."

And D'Artagnan plunged his oar into the water. Two or three long strokes placed twenty fathoms between the boat and the drowning man.

"Oh! you will have mercy!" cried Mordaunt. "You will not let me perish!"

"Aha! my fine fellow," said Porthos, "we have you now, I think, without a chance of escape."

"Oh, Porthos!" murmured the Count de la Fère.

"For heaven's sake, Athos," replied Porthos, "cease your eternal generosity, which is ridiculous under such circumstances. For my part I declare to you, that if he comes within my reach, I will split his skull with the oar."

D'Artagnan, who had just finished his colloquy with Aramis, stood up in the boat.

"Sir," said he to the swimmer, "be so good as to betake yourself in some other direction. The vessel which you intended for our coffin is scarcely yet at the bottom of the sea, and your present situation is a bed of roses compared to that in which you intended to put us."

"Gentlemen!" said Mordaunt in despairing accents, "I swear to you that I sincerely repent. I am too young to die. I was led away by a natural resentment; I wished to revenge my mother. You would all have acted as I have done."

"Pshaw!" said D'Artagnan, who saw that Athos was becoming more and more softened by Mordaunt's supplications. The swimmer was again within three or four fathoms of the boat. The approach of death seemed to give him supernatural strength.