“Exactly. Well, I inhabit the first,—two net-makers occupy it with me; it is their bark which brought me ashore.”
“But your own vessel, monsieur?”
“My vessel is at anchor, a quarter of a mile at sea, and waits for me.”
“You do not think, however, of setting out immediately?”
“My lord, I shall try once more to convince your honor.”
“You will not succeed,” replied Monk; “but it is of consequence that you should depart from Newcastle without leaving of your passage the least suspicion that might prove injurious to me or you. To-morrow my officers think Lambert will attack me. I, on the contrary, am convinced that he will not stir; it is in my opinion impossible. Lambert leads an army devoid of homogeneous principles, and there is no possible army with such elements. I have taught my soldiers to consider my authority subordinate to another, therefore after me, round me, and beneath me they still look for something. It would result that if I were dead, whatever might happen, my army would not be demoralized all at once; it results, that if I choose to absent myself, for instance, as it does please me to do sometimes, there would not be in the camp the shadow of uneasiness or disorder. I am the magnet—the sympathetic and natural strength of the English. All those scattered irons that will be sent against me I shall attract to myself. Lambert, at this moment, commands eighteen thousand deserters, but I have never mentioned that to my officers, you may easily suppose. Nothing is more useful to an army than the expectation of a coming battle; everybody is awake—everybody is on guard. I tell you this that you may live in perfect security. Do not be in a hurry, then, to cross the seas; within a week there will be something fresh, either a battle or an accomodation. Then, as you have judged me to be a honorable man, and confided your secret to me, I have to thank you for this confidence, and I shall come and pay you a visit or send for you. Do not go before I send you word. I repeat the request.”
“I promise you, general,” cried Athos, with a joy so great, that in spite of all his circumspection, he could not prevent its sparkling in his eyes.
Monk surprised this flash, and immediately extinguished it by one of those silent smiles which always caused his interlocutors to know they had made no inroad on his mind.
“Then, my lord, it is a week that you desire me to wait?”
“A week? yes, monsieur.”