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He told me very politely that his excellence begged me to step upstairs. I put my hand in my pocket and gave the man my card with my name and address, and telling him that that was what his master wanted, I ordered the postillion to drive off at a full gallop. When we had gone half a league we stopped at a good inn, and then proceeded on our way back to Bologna.
I saw at once that his intention was to have me upset along the road, and perhaps thrown into the river; but I calmly told the postillion that at the very moment my chaise was upset I would blow his brains out with a pistol-shot; this threat frightened the man; he took his horses back to the stables, and declared to his master that he would not drive me.
Suppose this son of mine, who, as you say, was as great as the greatest among you, and as noble as the noblest; suppose he had admired your beauty, and had offered to take you home to his mother as the wife of his bosom, how would you then have answered him? What would you then have thought of the postillion? Would he then have been the equal of gay young counts, and high-blooded marquises?"
At ten o'clock the vessel cast anchor in the harbor of Dover, and at half past ten d'Artagnan placed his foot on English land, crying, "Here I am at last!" But that was not all; they must get to London. In England the post was well served. D'Artagnan and Planchet took each a post horse, and a postillion rode before them. In a few hours they were in the capital.
All in broad daylight; but so lonely is that spot, nothing might have been heard of it, if at the end of the week the postillion who had been bribed and threatened with terrible threats to keep his tongue from wagging, had not begun to talk. So the scene of the encounter was examined, and on one spot, carefully earthed over, blood- marks were discovered in the green sand.
'I ought to think so, said Evan, mastering the shrewd unpleasantness he felt in the colloquy forced on him. 'Oh, you! you're a gentleman! the postillion ejaculated. 'You see I have no money. 'Feel it, too, sir. 'I am sorry you should be the victim. 'Victim! the postillion seized on an objectionable word. 'I ain't no victim, unless you was up to a joke with me, sir, just now.
I watched him loading a pistol at a station and was amused at his ostentatious manner. When the operation was completed he fixed the weapon in his belt and swaggered out with the air of the heavy tragedian at the Old Bowery. Another postillion stuck around with pistols and knives looked like a military museum on its travels.
I defy even a Spanish ear to distinguish the import of these cries, and the great wonder was how they could all come out of one small throat. The postillion, having only the care of the foremost span, is a silent man, but he has contracted a habit of sleeping in the saddle, which I mention for the benefit of timid travellers, as it adds to the interest of a journey by night.
The chevalier, seeing that he could not conquer the man's determination, sent his postillion to a farrier, whose house lay on the road, for a hammer and four nails, and with his own hands nailed the portrait to the back of his chaise; then he stepped in again, bade the postillion whip up his horses, and drove away, leaving Madame d'Urban's messenger greatly astonished at the manner in which the chevalier had used his mistress's portrait.
Evan jumped out. 'I don't think I'll take you any farther, he said. The postillion laughed to scorn the notion of his caring how far he went. With a pipe in his mouth, he insinuatingly remarked, he could jog on all night, and throw sleep to the dogs. Fresh horses at Hillford; fresh at Fallow field: and the gentleman himself would reach Lymport fresh in the morning.
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