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D’Artagnan, the sequel to The Three Musketeers
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Voir les arbres généalogiques de d'Artagnan et Athos |
Extrait du chapitre 16 The astonishing effect of a kick upon a dead man
The scene was frightful; it appeared that no living person
remained to greet them.
D'Artagnan lay upon his face, a trickle of blood coming from
beneath his arm. Athos lay across the legs of Montforge. Behind
them, the dead men and the fallen beam were piled in the rear
entrance.
"The captain is dead!" cried one of the throng in consternation.
"They are all dead!" cried another.
"Name of the devil, then who pays us?" shouted a third.
"Get the captain's purse, take what we find!"
And all of them with one accord clustered about the body of Montforge,
to plunder the dead.
Near the entrance, Porthos came to one knee, then gained his
feet. He was almost unhurt; the ball that stunned him had barely
cut the scalp, letting blood but doing no worse damage. As now,
among those struggling, plundering figures, he saw the half-naked
form of Athos and the fallen body of d'Artagnan, his eyes distended,
a flood of color rushed into his face, and from his lips burst
a wild and horrible cry.
"Murderers- you shall pay for this!"
Unarmed as he was, he rushed forward.
Next instant, even through the madness of his despair and rage
he could perceive his folly, for they heard his cry and swung
about, snarling like wolves. Swords glittered; a pistol crashed
out, but the hall went wild. Porthos, evading the lunge of a
rapier, caught sight of the huge spit leaning against the fireplace.
He hurled himself toward it, reached it, and grasped it in both
hands.
This pointed bar of steel, which one man could scarce lift, whirled
about his head like a sliver of wood. The nearest bravo, rushing
upon Porthos with sword extended, was struck full across the
face by this terrific weapon.
A fearful scream burst from the others. Instead of crowding forward,
they crowded back, away from this giant who flung himself upon
them, face empurpled, foam slavering his lips. Porthos was in
the grip of one of those convulsive rages in which he was no
longer a man but a destroying angel.
He leaped among them, striking.
Now in the obscurity of this room, through the fumes of powder,
ascended fearful and hideous sounds; the revolting reek of fresh
blood stank in the nostrils of men. Amid the rising cloud of
dust might be discerned frantic shapes rushing to and fro. The
piercing sharpness of cries and screams followed swift upon thudding
crunches as that grisly weapon fell, now here, now there, crushing
out life and human shape.
Panic fell upon these men; they crowded about the entrance, and
there Porthos fell upon them and scattered them, and slew two
as they fought madly together at the narrow opening. At this,
their blind panic was changed into the instinct of the wild beast
to destroy that which is destroying him. Their weapons had been
flung away or dropped. None the less, they came crowding upon
the dim and terrible figure of Porthos, gripping at him before
and behind; he thrust the pointed bar and transfixed one man
so that he screamed and writhed like some helpless beetle dying
upon a pin, but there the steel spit was torn out of his hand
and lost.
In this chamber of dust and blood and death, the one uprose among
the dozen that tore at him, a giant among pigmies. Suddenly something
was seen to move in the air above their heads, and there sounded
a rushing as it were of wings, and the pitiful terrified wail
of a man sharply rising. Then they fell back from around him
in mad horror, for Porthos, stooping, had plucked up a man by
the ankles and was swinging him about his head, and beating with
this flail of flesh and bone upon those before him, and crushing
them down. Upon this, they fled.
And now, abruptly, the madness went out of Porthos. He dropped
the broken body from his hands, wiped the blood and sweat out
of his eyes, and stood peering around him in a sort of half-comprehending
abhorrence. A trembling seized upon him. A dying man was shrieking
at his feet, and he turned away, crossing himself with shaking
hand.
"Mon Dieu, what have I done!" he groaned.
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