"Who, indeed, would have hesitated in your place?" added Angela.
"No, no, I tell you that I should not have accepted; my heart, if not my head, should have revolted at this deceptive thought. But what did I know. A strange fatality, perhaps a frightful egotism, pushed me on. I accepted. I pressed Sidney in my arms, I took his clothes, and I said to him, 'To-morrow!' with the conviction that I should see him the following day. I left my cell; the jailer escorted me to the gate; thanks to my resemblance to Sidney, he noticed nothing wrong, and led me in haste by a secret road as far as a door of the Tower. I was free! I forgot to tell you that Sidney had informed me of a house in the city where I could wait for him safely, for he would return, he said, to me the following day, in order to plan our departure. At last I found, at this house in the city, the precious stones I had confided to Sidney on my departure from Holland, the value of which was enormous. Wrapped up in his mantle, a mantle which you wear to-day, and which has remained sacred to me, I directed my steps toward the city. I rapped at the door; an old woman opened it, and leading me into a secluded chamber, she gave into my hands the iron casket, the key of which Sidney had handed me. I found there my precious stones. Broken with fatigue, for the sleepless hours I had passed were frightful, I fell into a slumber. For the first time since my sentence to death, I sought sleep without saying to myself that the scaffold awaited me on my awakening. When I arose the following day it was broad daylight; a bright sun penetrated between my curtains. I raised them; the sky was clear; it was a radiant summer day. Oh! I felt such rapturous joy and such inexpressible happiness. I had seen my open tomb, and I still lived. I breathed the air in every pore. Seized with gratitude, I threw myself upon my knees, and blessed God, the king, and Sidney. I waited to see this dear friend from one moment to another. I did not doubt, no, I could not doubt, the king's clemency. All at once I heard in the distance the criers announcing important events; it seemed to me that I heard my name. I thought it was an illusion, but, in fact, it was my name. Oh, then, a frightful presentiment seized me; my hair stood on end. I remained on my knees. I listened with my heart beating violently; the voices came nearer; I still heard my name mingled with other words. A ray of joy, as foolish as my presentiment had been horrible, changed my terror into hope. Madman! I believed they were crying the details of the escape of the Duke of Monmouth. In my impatience, I descended to the street; I bought the account; I mounted again with palpitating heart, holding the paper in my hands."
Saying these words, Monmouth became frightfully pale, and could hardly support himself. A cold perspiration bathed his forehead.
"Well?" cried Angela and Croustillac, who experienced a piercing agony.
"Ah," cried the duke despairingly, "it was the details of the execution of the Duke of Monmouth."[B]
"And Sidney?" cried Angela.
"Sidney had died for me, died a martyr to friendship. His blood, his noble blood, had been shed upon the scaffold instead of mine. Now, Angela, you see, unhappy child, why I have always hidden this terrible secret."
At these words the duke fell back on the sofa, hiding his face in his hands. Angela threw herself at his feet, sobbing bitterly.
[B] Hume says: "After his execution, his partisans held to the hope of yet seeing him at their head; they flattered themselves that the prisoner who had been beheaded was not the Duke of Monmouth, but one of his friends, who resembled him greatly, and who had had the courage to die in his stead."
Sainte-Foix, in a letter on the Iron Mask (Amsterdam, 1768), says: "It is true that the report spread through London that an officer of Monmouth's army who greatly resembled the duke, having been taken prisoner, and knowing death to be inevitable, received a proposition to represent the duke with as much joy as if life had been offered him; and hearing this, that a great lady, having bribed those who could open his coffin, and having looked at the form, cried, 'Ah, that is not the Duke of Monmouth.'" Furthermore, Sainte-Foix, who sought to prove that the Iron Mask was no other than the Duke of Monmouth, cited a passage of another English work by Pyms, in which he says: "Count Landy sent to seek Colonel Skelton, who was the ex-lieutenant of the Tower, and whom the Prince of Orange had dismissed to give the place to Lord Lucas." "Skelton," said Count Landy to him the previous evening, in dining with Robert Johnston, "you say that the Duke of Monmouth is living and imprisoned in an English castle?" "I cannot vouch for this, because I do not really know," said Skelton, "but I affirm that the night after the pretended execution of the Duke of Monmouth, the king, accompanied by three men, came himself to the tower and carried the duke away."