The Fourty-Five Guardsmen - Alexandre Dumas père (best time to read books .txt) 📗

the musket or cannon. Alas! I did not seek this; I went calmly to meet a glorious death, and I wished to die with her name on my lips. It is not so to be; I am destined to a death full of bitterness and torture. Well, I accept it."

Then, recalling his days of waiting, and his nights of anguish before the inexorable house, he found that he was less to be pitied here than at Paris, and he went on.

"I will stay here, and take these trees for a shelter, and then I can hear her voice when she speaks, and see her shadow on the window."

He lay down, then, under the willows, listening, with a melancholy impossible to describe, to the murmur of the water that flowed at his side. All at once he started; the noise of cannon was brought distinctly to him by the wind.

"Ah!" said he, "I shall arrive too late; they are attacking Antwerp."

His first idea was to rise, mount his horse, and ride on as quickly as possible; but to do this he must quit the lady, and die in doubt, so he remained.

During two hours he lay there, listening to the reports. He did not guess that what he heard was his brother's ships blowing up. At last, about two o'clock, all grew quiet.

"Now," thought Henri, "Antwerp is taken, and my brother is a conqueror; but after Antwerp will come Ghent, and then Bruges; I shall not want an occasion for a glorious death. But before I die I must know what this woman wants in the French camp."

He lay still, and had just fallen asleep, when his horse, which was grazing quietly near him, pricked up his ears and neighed loudly.

Henri opened his eyes. The animal had his head turned to the breeze, which had changed to the southeast, as if listening.

"What is it, my good horse?" said the young man; "have you seen some animal which frightened you, or do you regret the shelter of your stable?"

The animal stood still, looking toward Lier, with his eyes fixed and his nostrils distended, and listening.

"Ah!" said Henri, "it is more serious; perhaps some troops of wolves following the army to devour the corpses."

The horse neighed and began to run forward to the west, but his master caught the bridle and jumped on his back, and then was able to keep him quiet. But after a minute, Henri himself began to hear what the horse had heard. A long murmur, like the wind, but more solemn, which seemed to come from different points of the compass, from south to north.

"What is it?" said Henri; "can it be the wind? No, it is the wind which brings this sound, and I hear the two distinctly. An army in march, perhaps? But no; I should hear the sound of voices and of regular marching. Is it the crackling of a fire? No, there is no light in the horizon; the heaven seems even to grow darker."

The noise redoubled and became distinct; it was an incessant growling and rolling, as if thousands of cannon were being dragged over a paved road. Henri thought of this. "But no," said he, "there is no paved road near."

The noise continued to increase, and Henri put his horse to the gallop and gained an eminence.

"What do I see?" cried he, as he attained the summit. What he saw his horse had seen before him; for he had only been able to make him advance by furious spurring, and when they arrived at the top of the hill he reared so as nearly to fall backward. They saw in the horizon an infinite body rolling over the plain, and visibly and rapidly approaching. The young man looked in wonder at this strange phenomenon, when, looking back to the place he had come from, he saw the plain beginning to be covered with water, and that the little river had overflowed, and was beginning to cover the reeds which a quarter of an hour before had stood up stiffly on its banks.

"Fool that I am," cried he, "I never thought of it. The water! the water! The Flemings have broken their dykes!"

Henri flew to the house, and knocked furiously at the door.

"Open! open!" cried he.

No one replied.

"Open, Remy!" cried he, furious with terror; "it is I, Henri du Bouchage."

"Oh! you need not name yourself, M. le Comte," answered Remy from within, "I recognized you long ago; but I warn you, that if you break in the door you will find me behind it, with a pistol in each hand."

"But you do not understand," cried Henri; "the water; it is the water!"

"No fables, no pretexts or dishonorable ruses, M. le Comte; I tell you that you will only enter over my body."

"Then I will pass over it, but I will enter. In Heaven's name, in the name of your own safety and your mistress's, will you open?"--"No."

Henri looked round him, and perceived an immense stone. He raised it and threw it against the door, which flew open. A ball passed over Henri's head, but without touching him; he jumped toward Remy, and seizing his other arm, cried, "Do you not see that I have no arms? do not defend yourself against a man who does not attack. Look! only look!" and he drew him to the window.

"Well," said he, "do you see now?" and he pointed to the horizon.

"The water!" cried Remy.

"Yes, the water! it invades us; see, at our feet, the river overflows, and in five minutes we shall be surrounded."

"Madame! madame!" cried Remy.

"Do not frighten her, Remy; get ready the horses at once."

Remy ran to the stable, and Henri flew up the staircase. At Remy's cry Diana had opened her door; Henri seized her in his arms and carried her away as he would have done a child. But she, believing in treason or violence, struggled, and clung to the staircase with all her might.

"Tell her that I am saving her, Remy!" cried Henri.

Remy heard the appeal, and cried:

"Yes, yes, madame, he is saving you, or rather he will save you. Come, for Heaven's sake!"


CHAPTER LXIX.

FLIGHT.

Henri, without losing time in reasoning with Diana, carried her out of the house, and wished to place her before him on his horse; but she, with a movement of invincible repugnance, glided from his arms, and was received by Remy, who placed her on her own horse.

"Ah, madame!" cried Henri, "how little you understand my heart. It was not, believe me, for the pleasure of holding you in my arms, or pressing you to my heart, although for that favor I would sacrifice my life, but that we ought to fly as quickly as the birds, and look at them, how they fly!"

Indeed, in the scarcely dawning light were seen large numbers of curlews and pigeons, traversing the air with a quick and frightened flight, which, in the night, usually abandoned to the silent bat, looked strange to the eye, and sounded sinister to the ear.

Diana did not reply, but rode on without turning her head. Her horse, however, as well as that of Remy, was fatigued with their long journey, and Henri, as he turned back each moment, saw that they could not keep up with him.

"See, madame!" said he, "how my horse outstrips yours, and yet I am holding him in with all my strength; for Heaven's sake, madame, while there is yet time, if you will not ride with me, take my horse and leave me yours."

"No, thank you, monsieur," replied she, in her usual calm voice.

"But, madame," cried Henri, in despair, "the water gains on us; do you hear! do you hear?"

Indeed, a horrible crashing was now heard; it was the dyke of a neighboring village giving way, to swell the inundation. Boards and props had given way, a double row of stakes broke with a noise like thunder, and the water, rushing over the ruins, began to invade an oak wood, of which they saw the tops trembling, and heard the branches cracking as though a flight of demons were passing under the leaves.

The uprooted trees knocking against the stakes, the wood of ruined houses floating on the waters, the distant neighings and cries of horses and men carried away by the inundation, formed a concert of sounds so strange and gloomy that the terror which agitated Henri began to seize also upon Diana. She spurred her horse, and he, as if he understood the danger, redoubled his efforts. But the water gained on them, and before ten minutes it was evident that it would reach them. Every instant Henri turned and cried, "Quicker, madame! for pity's sake; the water comes; here it is!"

It came, indeed, foaming and turbulent, carrying away like a feather the house in which they had taken shelter; and majestic, immense, rolling like a serpent, it arrived like a wall behind the horses of Remy and Diana. Henri uttered a cry of terror, and turned on the water, as though he would have fought it.

"You see you are lost!" screamed he. "Come, madame, perhaps there is still time; come with me."

"No, monsieur," said she.

"In a minute it will be too late; look!" cried he.

Diana turned; the water was within fifty feet of her.

"Let my fate be accomplished," said she; "you, monsieur, fly."

Remy's horse, exhausted, fell, and could not rise again, despite the efforts of his rider.

"Save her in spite of herself," cried Remy.

And at the same moment, as he disengaged himself from the stirrups, the water passed over the head of the faithful servant. His mistress, at this sight, uttered a terrible cry, and tried to jump off her horse to perish with him. But Henri, seeing her intention, seized her round the waist, and placing her before him, set off like an arrow.

"Remy! Remy!" cried she, extending her arms. A cry was the only answer. Remy had come up to the surface, and, with the indomitable hope which accompanies the dying man to the last, was swimming, sustained by a beam. By his side came his horse, beating the water desperately with his feet, while the water gained on Diana's horse, and some twenty feet in front Henri and Diana flew on the third horse, which was half mad with terror.

Remy scarcely regretted life, since he hoped that his loved mistress would be saved.

"Adieu, madame!" cried he. "I go first to him who waits for us, to tell him that you live for--"

He could not finish; a mountain of water rolled over his head.

"Remy! Remy!" cried the lady, "I wish to die with you. I will! monsieur, I will go to him; in the name of God, I will!"

She pronounced these words with so much energy and angry authority, that the young man unfolded his arms and let her slip to the ground, saying--

"Well, madame, we will all three die here together; it is a joy I had not hoped for."

As he said these words he stopped his horse, and the water reached them almost immediately; but, by a last effort of love, the young man kept hold of Diana's arm as she stood on the ground. The flood rolled over them. It was a sublime