Alexandre Dumas: The Man in the Iron Mask

Chapter 17: High Treason. (continued)

"Bah! to-morrow will be time enough."

"To-morrow! - oh, no. This very minute."

"Well; go off to your affairs, I will go away to mine. But it is quite understood, is it not?"

"What 'is quite understood'?"

"That no one is to enter the prisoner's cell, expect with an order from the king; an order which I will myself bring."

"Quite so. Adieu, monseigneur."

Aramis returned to his companion. "Now, Porthos, my good fellow, back again to Vaux, and as fast as possible."

"A man is light and easy enough, when he has faithfully served his king; and, in serving him, saved his country," said Porthos. "The horses will be as light as if our tissues were constructed of the wind of heaven. So let us be off." And the carriage, lightened of a prisoner, who might well be - as he in fact was - very heavy in the sight of Aramis, passed across the drawbridge of the Bastile, which was raised again immediately behind it.