Alexandre Dumas: The Man in the Iron Mask

62. The Death of D'Artagnan. (continued)

D'Artagnan was holding out his hand to open the coffret, when a ball from the city crushed the coffret in the arms of the officer, struck D'Artagnan full in the chest, and knocked him down upon a sloping heap of earth, whilst the fleur-de-lised baton, escaping from the broken box, came rolling under the powerless hand of the marechal. D'Artagnan endeavored to raise himself. It was thought he had been knocked down without being wounded. A terrible cry broke from the group of terrified officers; the marechal was covered with blood; the pallor of death ascended slowly to his noble countenance. Leaning upon the arms held out on all sides to receive him, he was able once more to turn his eyes towards the place, and to distinguish the white flag at the crest of the principal bastion; his ears, already deaf to the sounds of life, caught feebly the rolling of the drum which announced the victory. Then, clasping in his nerveless hand the baton, ornamented with its fleurs-de-lis, he cast on it his eyes, which had no longer the power of looking upwards towards Heaven, and fell back, murmuring strange words, which appeared to the soldiers cabalistic - words which had formerly represented so many things on earth, and which none but the dying man any longer comprehended:

"Athos - Porthos, farewell till we meet again! Aramis, adieu forever!"

Of the four valiant men whose history we have related, there now remained but one. Heaven had taken to itself three noble souls.

THE END

Transcriber's note: In earlier editions, the last line reads, "Of the four valiant men whose history we have related, there now no longer remained but one single body; God had resumed the souls." - JB