Richelieu answered calmly, but with emphasis, "A pickaxe and a shovel, followed up by the movements of those two great officers, Pestilence and Famine. When you announced in Rochelle, Master Langdale, the coming of Lord Denbigh's fleet, and those wise men of the East refused to receive it in their port, they little thought, I ween, that those two mighty commanders would be so soon amongst them. But how was it," he continued, changing his tone and speaking rapidly, "that they dared, in such perilous circumstances, to send away King Charles's ships upon the pretext that they had not been warned, when you yourself had warned them?"
"Your Eminence's pardon," answered Edward; "but Master Jargeau, who of course told you all this, should also have said that I had not been an hour in Rochelle before I had my head broken, and lay for nearly a week incapable of delivering any of my letters. It was a pretext, as your Eminence calls it; but the Rochellois had really not been warned when Lord Denbigh's fleet arrived."
"You are mistaken, young man," said Richelieu, with a slight curl of the lip: "you jump at your conclusions too rapidly. There have been more Jargeaus than one in Rochelle; and this one, though a very serviceable fellow, I am told, never saw me in his life. Ay, it is a pity that he would not keep his neck out of the noose; but he forced us to hang him,—which was a severe loss to the king's service. He was in the case of those men who, as the Scriptures say, are exceedingly fond of serving both God and mammon. God abandoned him, and mammon could not save him; for though he offered Bassompierre the whole value of a cargo of fish he had contrived to get into Rochelle,—and every fish was worth an ounce of gold, be it remarked,—Bassompierre, whose intelligence is very good, seized the gold where he had hidden it, and hanged him according to proclamation."
All this was said with much coolness and deliberation; and from time to time the great minister raised his glass to his eye and gazed at the battery, which had not yet ceased firing. He waited about ten minutes more, and then beckoned up some of the superior officers round him, asking if they thought his messenger had not had time to reach the lines. They all agreed that there had been plenty of time; but one of them added, in a careless tone, "It is possible, your Eminence, that he may not have carried either his head or his message with him. There has been a puff or two of smoke from the walls, and nobody can tell where the shot may have gone. A man may have a tierce major in his favor and yet lose the game after all."
"Possibly," replied Richelieu, and then resumed his watch. During some five minutes after, the line of the battery showed no more smoke or fire; the wreaths of sulphurous vapor curled away; the town also ceased firing, the whole scene lay quiet and peaceful beneath their eyes, and nothing was seen but a few horsemen riding about, with one apart from the rest, galloping quickly up toward the hill on which they were.
The cardinal waited his arrival and put some questions, which Edward Langdale, who had fallen a little back, did not hear.
"In five days, your Eminence," replied the officer, aloud. "He says that at present no boat bigger than a cockle-shell can get in or out, and, unless there be a very high tide or a gale of wind, the place will be sealed up as tight as a bottle of old Burgundy."
"Well," said Richelieu; "it is well. Have they made no attempt to interrupt the works?"
"None whatever, your Eminence," replied the other: "they are trusting to God's good providence and a high tide,—doubtless praying in all their temples for storm and tempest with profound devotion; but the devil and the wind do not seem inclined to help them, and the poor creatures whom they drove out have been received into the town again to eat them up, so that they cannot hold out many weeks longer."
The cardinal smiled, and, turning his horse, rode slowly back toward the Chateau of Mauzé, without saying a word to any one, and seemingly buried in profound thought.