“Do you call him Nebuchadnezzar?” said Mordaunt, with a terrible smile; “no, it is Charles the First, the king, the good King Charles, who despoils his subjects to enrich himself.”
Charles glanced a moment at the insolent creature who uttered this, but did not recognize him. Nevertheless, the calm religious dignity of his countenance abashed Mordaunt.
“Bon jour, messieurs!” said the king to the two gentlemen who were held by D’Artagnan and Porthos. “The day has been unfortunate, but it is not your fault, thank God! But where is my old friend Winter?”
The two gentlemen turned away their heads in silence.
“In Strafford’s company,” said Mordaunt, tauntingly.
Charles shuddered. The demon had known how to wound him. The remembrance of Strafford was a source of lasting remorse to him, the shadow that haunted him by day and night. The king looked around him. He saw a corpse at his feet. It was Winter’s. He uttered not a word, nor shed a tear, but a deadly pallor spread over his face; he knelt down on the ground, raised Winter’s head, and unfastening the Order of the Saint Esprit, placed it on his own breast.
“Lord Winter is killed, then?” inquired D’Artagnan, fixing his eyes on the corpse.
“Yes,” said Athos, “by his own nephew.”
“Come, he was the first of us to go; peace be to him! he was an honest man,” said D’Artagnan.
“Charles Stuart,” said the colonel of the English regiment, approaching the king, who had just put on the insignia of royalty, “do you yield yourself a prisoner?”