“Laporte,” said the duke, in a dying voice, “Laporte, do you come from her?”
“Yes, monseigneur,” replied the faithful cloak bearer of Anne of Austria, “but too late, perhaps.”
“Silence, Laporte, you may be overheard. Patrick, let no one enter. Oh, I cannot tell what she says to me! My God, I am dying!”
And the duke swooned.
Meanwhile, Lord de Winter, the deputies, the leaders of the expedition, the officers of Buckingham’s household, had all made their way into the chamber. Cries of despair resounded on all sides. The news, which filled the palace with tears and groans, soon became known, and spread itself throughout the city.
The report of a cannon announced that something new and unexpected had taken place.
Lord de Winter tore his hair.
“Too late by a minute!” cried he, “too late by a minute! Oh, my God, my God! what a misfortune!”
He had been informed at seven o’clock in the morning that a rope ladder floated from one of the windows of the castle; he had hastened to Milady’s chamber, had found it empty, the window open, and the bars filed, had remembered the verbal caution d’Artagnan had transmitted to him by his messenger, had trembled for the duke, and running to the stable without taking time to have a horse saddled, had jumped upon the first he found, had galloped off like the wind, had alighted below in the courtyard, had ascended the stairs precipitately, and on the top step, as we have said, had encountered Felton.