71

Twenty Years After

by Alexandre Dumas

71, TWENTY YEARS AFTER by Alexandre Dumas
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Port Wine.



In ten minutes the masters slept; not so the servants
---hungry, and more thirsty than hungry.

Blaisois and Mousqueton set themselves to preparing their bed
which consisted of a plank and a valise. On a hanging table,
which swung to and fro with the rolling of the vessel, were
a pot of beer and three glasses.

"This cursed rolling!" said Blaisois. "I know it will serve
me as it did when we came over."

"And to think," said Mousqueton, "that we have nothing to
fight seasickness with but barley bread and hop beer. Pah!"

"But where is your wicker flask, Monsieur Mousqueton? Have
you lost it?" asked Blaisois.

"No," replied Mousqueton, "Parry kept it. Those devilish
Scotchmen are always thirsty. And you, Grimaud," he said to
his companion, who had just come in after his round with
D'Artagnan, "are you thirsty?"

"As thirsty as a Scotchman!" was Grimaud's laconic reply.

And he sat down and began to cast up the accounts of his
party, whose money he managed.

"Oh, lackadaisy! I'm beginning to feel queer!" cried
Blaisois.

"If that's the case," said Mousqueton, with a learned air,
"take some nourishment."

"Do you call that nourishment?" said Blaisois, pointing to
the barley bread and pot of beer upon the table.

"Blaisois," replied Mousqueton, "remember that bread is the
true nourishment of a Frenchman, who is not always able to
get bread, ask Grimaud."

"Yes, but beer?" asked Blaisois sharply, "is that their true
drink?"

"As to that," answered Mousqueton, puzzled how to get out of
the difficulty, "I must confess that to me beer is as
disagreeable as wine is to the English."

"What! Monsieur Mousqueton! The English -- do they dislike
wine?"

"They hate it."

"But I have seen them drink it."

"As a punishment. For example, an English prince died one
day because they had put him into a butt of Malmsey. I heard
the Chevalier d'Herblay say so."

"The fool!" cried Blaisois, "I wish I had been in his
place."

"Thou canst be," said Grimaud, writing down his figures.

"How?" asked Blaisois, "I can? Explain yourself."

Grimaud went on with his sum and cast up the whole.

"Port," he said, extending his hand in the direction of the
first compartment examined by D'Artagnan and himself.

"Eh? eh? ah? Those barrels I saw through the door?"

"Port!" replied Grimaud, beginning a fresh sum.

"I have heard," said Blaisois, "that port is a very good
wine."

"Excellent!" exclaimed Mousqueton, smacking his lips.
"Excellent; there is port wine in the cellar of Monsieur le
Baron de Bracieux."

"Suppose we ask these Englishmen to sell us a bottle," said
the honest Blaisois.

"Sell!" cried Mousqueton, about whom there was a remnant of
his ancient marauding character left. "One may well
perceive, young man, that you are inexperienced. Why buy
what one can take?"

"Take!" said Blaisois; "covet the goods of your neighbor?
That is forbidden, it seems to me."

"Where forbidden?" asked Mousqueton.

"In the commandments of God, or of the church, I don't know
which. I only know it says, `Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's goods, nor yet his wife.'"

"That is a child's reason, Monsieur Blaisois," said
Mousqueton in his most patronizing manner. "Yes, you talk
like a child -- I repeat the word. Where have you read in
the Scriptures, I ask you, that the English are your
neighbors?"

"Where, that is true," said Blaisois; "at least, I can't now
recall it."

"A child's reason -- I repeat it," continued Mousqueton. "If
you had been ten years engaged in war, as Grimaud and I have
been, my dear Blaisois, you would know the difference there
is between the goods of others and the goods of enemies. Now
an Englishman is an enemy; this port wine belongs to the
English, therefore it belongs to us."

"And our masters?" asked Blaisois, stupefied by this
harangue, delivered with an air of profound sagacity, "will
they be of your opinion?"

Mousqueton smiled disdainfully.

"I suppose that you think it necessary that I should disturb
the repose of these illustrious lords to say, `Gentlemen,
your servant, Mousqueton, is thirsty.' What does Monsieur
Bracieux care, think you, whether I am thirsty or not?"

"'Tis a very expensive wine," said Blaisois, shaking his
head.

"Were it liquid gold, Monsieur Blaisois, our masters would
not deny themselves this wine. Know that Monsieur de
Bracieux is rich enough to drink a tun of port wine, even if
obliged to pay a pistole for every drop." His manner became
more and more lofty every instant; then he arose and after
finishing off the beer at one draught he advanced
majestically to the door of the compartment where the wine
was. "Ah! locked!" he exclaimed; "these devils of English,
how suspicious they are!"

"Locked!" said Blaisois; "ah! the deuce it is; unlucky, for
my stomach is getting more and more upset."

"Locked!" repeated Mousqueton.

"But," Blaisois ventured to say, "I have heard you relate,
Monsieur Mousqueton, that once on a time, at Chantilly, you
fed your master and yourself by taking partridges in a
snare, carp with a line, and bottles with a slipnoose."

"Perfectly true; but there was an airhole in the cellar and
the wine was in bottles. I cannot throw the loop through
this partition nor move with a pack-thread a cask of wine
which may perhaps weigh two hundred pounds."

"No, but you can take out two or three boards of the
partition," answered Blaisois, "and make a hole in the cask
with a gimlet."

Mousqueton opened his great round eyes to the utmost,
astonished to find in Blaisois qualities for which he did
not give him credit.

"'Tis true," he said; "but where can I get a chisel to take
the planks out, a gimlet to pierce the cask?"

"Trousers," said Grimaud, still squaring his accounts.

"Ah, yes!" said Mousqueton.

Grimaud, in fact, was not only the accountant, but the
armorer of the party; and as he was a man full of
forethought, these trousers, carefully rolled up in his
valise, contained every sort of tool for immediate use.

Mousqueton, therefore, was soon provided with tools and he
began his task. In a few minutes he had extracted three
boards. He tried to pass his body through the aperture, but
not being like the frog in the fable, who thought he was
larger than he really was, he found he must take out three
or four more before he could get through.

He sighed and set to work again.

Grimaud had now finished his accounts. He arose and stood
near Mousqueton.

"I," he said.

"What?" said Mousqueton.

"I can pass."

"That is true," said Mousqueton, glancing at his friend's
long and thin body, "you will pass easily."

"And he knows the full casks," said Blaisois, "for he has
already been in the hold with Monsieur le Chevalier
d'Artagnan. Let Monsieur Grimaud go in, Monsieur Mouston."

"I could go in as well as Grimaud," said Mousqueton, a little
piqued.

"Yes, but that would take too much time and I am thirsty. I
am getting more and more seasick."

"Go in, then, Grimaud," said Mousqueton, handing him the beer
pot and gimlet.

"Rinse the glasses," said Grimaud. Then with a friendly
gesture toward Mousqueton, that he might forgive him for
finishing an enterprise so brilliantly begun by another, he
glided like a serpent through the opening and disappeared.

Blaisois was in a state of great excitement; he was in
ecstasies. Of all the exploits performed since their arrival
in England by the extraordinary men with whom he had the
honor to be associated, this seemed without question to be
the most wonderful.

"You are about to see" said Mousqueton, looking at Blaisois
with an expression of superiority which the latter did not
even think of questioning, "you are about to see, Blaisois,
how we old soldiers drink when we are thirsty."

"My cloak," said Grimaud, from the bottom of the hold.

"What do you want?" asked Blaisois.

"My cloak -- stop up the aperture with it."

"Why?" asked Blaisois.

"Simpleton!" exclaimed Mousqueton; "suppose any one came into
the room."

"Ah, true," cried Blaisois, with evident admiration; "but it
will be dark in the cellar."

"Grimaud always sees, dark or light, night as well as day,"
answered Mousqueton.

"That is lucky," said Blaisois. "As for me, when I have no
candle I can't take two steps without knocking against
something."

"That's because you haven't served," said Mousqueton. "Had
you been in the army you would have been able to pick up a
needle on the floor of a closed oven. But hark! I think some
one is coming."

Mousqueton made, with a low whistling sound, the sign of
alarm well known to the lackeys in the days of their youth,
resumed his place at the table and made a sign to Blaisois
to follow his example.

Blaisois obeyed.

The door of their cabin was opened. Two men, wrapped in
their cloaks, appeared.

"Oho!" said they, "not in bed at a quarter past eleven.
That's against all rules. In a quarter of an hour let every
one be in bed and snoring."

These two men then went toward the compartment in which
Grimaud was secreted; opened the door, entered and shut it
after them.

"Ah!" cried Blaisois, "he is lost!"

"Grimaud's a cunning fellow," murmured Mousqueton.

They waited for ten minutes, during which time no noise was
heard that might indicate that Grimaud was discovered, and
at the expiration of that anxious interval the two men
returned, closed the door after them, and repeating their
orders that the servants should go to bed and extinguish
their lights, disappeared.

"Shall we obey?" asked Blaisois. "All this looks
suspicious."

"They said a quarter of an hour. We still have five
minutes," replied Mousqueton.

"Suppose we warn the masters."

"Let's wait for Grimaud."

"But perhaps they have killed him."

"Grimaud would have cried out."

"You know he is almost dumb."

"We should have heard the blow, then."

"But if he doesn't return?"

"Here he is."

At that very moment Grimaud drew back the cloak which hid
the aperture and came in with his face livid, his eyes
staring wide open with terror, so that the pupils were
contracted almost to nothing, with a large circle of white
around them. He held in his hand a tankard full of a dark
substance, and approaching the gleam of light shed by the
lamp he uttered this single monosyllable: "Oh!" with such an
expression of extreme terror that Mousqueton started,
alarmed, and Blaisois was near fainting from fright.

Both, however, cast an inquisitive glance into the tankard
-- it was full of gunpowder.

Convinced that the ship was full of powder instead of having
a cargo of wine, Grimaud hastened to awake D'Artagnan, who
had no sooner beheld him than he perceived that something
extraordinary had taken place. Imposing silence, Grimaud put
out the little night lamp, then knelt down and poured into
the lieutenant's ear a recital melodramatic enough not to
require play of feature to give it pith.

This was the gist of his strange story:

The first barrel that Grimaud had found on passing into the
compartment he struck -- it was empty. He passed on to
another -- it, also, was empty, but the third which he tried
was, from the dull sound it gave out, evidently full. At
this point Grimaud stopped and was preparing to make a hole
with his gimlet, when he found a spigot; he therefore placed
his tankard under it and turned the spout; something,
whatever it was the cask contained, fell silently into the
tankard.

Whilst he was thinking that he should first taste the liquor
which the tankard contained before taking it to his
companions, the door of the cellar opened and a man with a
lantern in his hands and enveloped in a cloak, came and
stood just before the hogshead, behind which Grimaud, on
hearing him come in, instantly crept. This was Groslow. He
was accompanied by another man, who carried in his hand
something long and flexible rolled up, resembling a washing
line. His face was hidden under the wide brim of his hat.
Grimaud, thinking that they had come, as he had, to try the
port wine, effaced himself behind his cask and consoled
himself with the reflection that if he were discovered the
crime was not a great one.

"Have you the wick?" asked the one who carried the lantern.

"Here it is," answered the other.

At the voice of this last speaker, Grimaud started and felt
a shudder creeping through his very marrow. He rose gently,
so that his head was just above the round of the barrel, and
under the large hat he recognized the pale face of Mordaunt.

"How long will this fuse burn?" asked this person.

"About five minutes," replied the captain.

That voice also was known to Grimaud. He looked from one to
the other and after Mordaunt he recognized Groslow.

"Then tell the men to be in readiness -- don't tell them why
now. When the clock strikes a quarter after midnight collect
your men. Get down into the longboat."

"That is, when I have lighted the match?"

"I will undertake that. I wish to be sure of my revenge. Are
the oars in the boat?"

"Everything is ready."

"'Tis well."

Mordaunt knelt down and fastened one end of the train to the
spigot, in order that he might have nothing to do but to set
it on fire at the opposite end with the match.

He then arose.

"You hear me -- at a quarter past midnight -- in fact, in
twenty minutes."

"I understand all perfectly, sir," replied Groslow; "but
allow me to say there is great danger in what you undertake;
would it not be better to intrust one of the men to set fire
to the train?"

"My dear Groslow," answered Mordaunt, "you know the French
proverb, `Nothing one does not do one's self is ever well
done.' I shall abide by that rule."

Grimaud had heard all this, if he had not understood it. But
what he saw made good what he lacked in perfect
comprehension of the language. He had seen the two mortal
enemies of the musketeers, had seen Mordaunt adjust the
fuse; he had heard the proverb, which Mordaunt had given in
French. Then he felt and felt again the contents of the
tankard he held in his hand; and, instead of the lively
liquor expected by Blaisois and Mousqueton, he found beneath
his fingers the grains of some coarse powder.

Mordaunt went away with the captain. At the door he stopped
to listen.

"Do you hear how they sleep?" he asked.

In fact, Porthos could be heard snoring through the
partition.

"'Tis God who gives them into our hands," answered Groslow.

"This time the devil himself shall not save them," rejoined
Mordaunt.

And they went out together.