Page:The Vicomte de Bragelonne 2.djvu/197

 THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. 185

within a week there will be something fresh, either a battle or an accommodation. Then, as you have judged me to be an honorable man, and confided your secret to me, I have to thank you for this confidence, and I will come and pay you a visit or send for you. Do not go before I send you word. I repeat the request."

"I promise you, general," cried Athos, with a joy so great, that, in spite of all his circumspection, he could not prevent its sparkling in his eyes.

Monk surprised this flash, and immediately extinguished it by one of those mute smiles which always broke, between these two interlocutors, the way which Athos believed he had made in his mind.

"Then, my lord, it is a week that you desire me to wait?"

"A week; yes, monsieur."

"And during these days what shall I do?"

"If there should be a battle, keep at a distance from it, I conjure you. I know the French delight in such amusements; you might take a fancy to see how we fight, and you might meet with some chance shot. Our Scotchmen are very bad marksmen, and I do not wish that a worthy gentleman like you should return to France wounded. I should not like either to be obliged, myself, to send to your prince his million left here by you; for then it would be said, and with reason, that I paid the Pretender to enable him to make war against the parliament. Go, then, monsieur, and let it be done as has been agreed upon."

"Ah, my lord," said Athos, "what joy it would give me to be the first that penetrated to the noble heart which beats beneath that cloak!"

"You decidedly think, then, that I have secrets," said Monk, without changing the half-cheerful expression of his countenance. "Why, monsieur, what secret can you expect to find in the hollow head of a soldier? But it is getting late, and our torch is almost out; let us call our man."

"Holá!" cried Monk in French, approaching the stairs; "holá! fisherman!"

The fisherman, benumbed by the cold night-air, replied in a hoarse voice, asking what they wanted of him.

"Go to the post," said Monk, "and order a sergeant, in the name of General Monk, to come here immediately."

This was a commission easily performed; for the sergeant, uneasy at the general's being in that desolate abbey, had drawn nearer by degrees, and was not much further off