“Go to the king’s apartment,” continued Aramis, tranquilly, “and you who know the mystery, I defy even you to perceive that the prisoner of the Bastile is lying in his brother’s bed.”
“But the king,” stammered Fouquet, seized with horror at the intelligence.
“What king?” said Aramis, in his gentlest tone; “the one who hates you, or the one who likes you?”
“The king—of—yesterday.”
“The king of yesterday! be quite easy on that score; he has gone to take the place in the Bastile which his victim occupied for so many years.”
“Great God! And who took him there?”
“I.”
“You?”
“Yes, and in the simplest way. I carried him away last night. While he was descending into midnight, the other was ascending into day. I do not think there has been any disturbance whatever. A flash of lightning without thunder awakens nobody.”
Fouquet uttered a thick, smothered cry, as if he had been struck by some invisible blow, and clasping his head between his clenched hands, he murmured: “You did that?”