The confessor darted forward to seek assistance, as if there had been any human strength which could hold back the hand of death, which was weighing down the sick man; but, at the threshold of the door, he found Aramis, who, with his finger on his lips, like the statue of Harpocrates, the god of silence, by a look motioned him back to the end of the apartment. The physician and the confessor, after having consulted each other by looks, made a movement as if to push Aramis aside, who, however, with two signs of the cross, each made in a different manner, transfixed them both in their places.
“A chief!” they both murmured.
Aramis slowly advanced into the room where the dying man was struggling against the first attack of the agony which had seized him. As for the Franciscan, whether owing to the effect of the elixir, or whether the appearance of Aramis had restored his strength, he made a movement, and his eyes glaring, his mouth half open, and his hair damp with sweat, sat up upon the bed. Aramis felt that the air of the room was stifling; the windows were closed; the fire was burning upon the hearth; a pair of candles of yellow wax were guttering down in the copper candlesticks, and still further increased, by their thick smoke, the temperature of the room. Aramis opened the window, and fixing upon the dying man a look full of intelligence and respect, said to him: “Monseigneur, pray forgive my coming in this manner, before you summoned me, but your state alarms me, and I thought you might possibly die before you had seen me, for I am but the sixth upon your list.”
The dying man started and looked at the list.
“You are, therefore, he who was formerly called Aramis, and since, the Chevalier d’Herblay? You are the bishop of Vannes?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I know you, I have seen you.”
“At the last jubilee, we were with the Holy Father together.”
“Yes, yes, I remember; and you place yourself on the list of candidates?”
“Monseigneur, I have heard it said that the order required to become possessed of a great state secret, and knowing that from modesty you had in anticipation resigned your functions in favor of the person who should be the depositary of such a secret, I wrote to say that I was ready to compete, possessing alone a secret I believe to be important.”
“Speak,” said the Franciscan; “I am ready to listen to you, and to judge the importance of the secret.”
“A secret of the value of that which I have the honor to confide to you cannot be communicated by word of mouth. Any idea which, when once expressed, has thereby lost its safeguard, and has become vulgarized by any manifestation or communication of it whatever, no longer is the property of him who gave it birth. My words may be overheard by some listener, or perhaps by an enemy; one ought not, therefore, to speak at random, for, in such a case, the secret would cease to be one.”
“How do you propose, then, to convey your secret?” inquired the dying monk.
With one hand Aramis signed to the physician and the confessor to withdraw, and with the other he handed to the Franciscan a paper enclosed in a double envelope.
“Is not writing more dangerous still than language?”
“No, my lord,” said Aramis, “for you will find within this envelope characters which you and I alone can understand.” The Franciscan looked at Aramis with an astonishment which momentarily increased.
“It is a cipher,” continued the latter, “which you used in 1655, and which your secretary, Juan Jujan, who is dead, could alone decipher, if he were restored to life.”
“You knew this cipher, then?”
“It was I who taught it him,” said Aramis, bowing with a gracefulness full of respect, and advancing towards the door as if to leave the room: but a gesture of the Franciscan accompanied by a cry for him to remain, restrained him.
“Ecce homo!” he exclaimed; then reading the paper a second time, he called out, “Approach, approach quickly!”
Aramis returned to the side of the Franciscan, with the same calm countenance and the same respectful manner, unchanged. The Franciscan, extending his arm, burnt by the flame of the candle the paper which Aramis had handed him. Then, taking hold of Aramis’s hand, he drew him towards him, and inquired: “In what manner and by whose means could you possibly become acquainted with such a secret?”
“Through Madame de Chevreuse, the intimate friend and confidante of the queen.”
“And Madame de Chevreuse—”
“Is dead.”
“Did any others know it?”
“A man and a woman only, and they of the lower classes.”
“Who are they?”
“Persons who had brought him up.”
“What has become of them?”
“Dead also. This secret burns like vitriol.”
“But you survive?”
“No one is aware that I know it.”
“And for what length of time have you possessed this secret?”
“For the last fifteen years.”
“And you have kept it?”
“I wished to live.”
“And you give it to the order without ambition, without acknowledgement?”
“I give it to the order with ambition and with a hope of return,” said Aramis; “for if you live, my lord, you will make of me, now you know me, what I can and ought to be.”
“And as I am dying,” exclaimed the Franciscan, “I constitute you my successor … Thus.” And drawing off the ring, he passed it on Aramis’s finger. Then, turning towards the two spectators of this scene, he said: “Be ye witnesses of this, and testify, if need be, that, sick in body, but sound in mind, I have freely and voluntarily bestowed this ring, the token of supreme authority, upon Monseigneur d’Herblay, bishop of Vannes, whom I nominate my successor, and before whom I, an humble sinner, about to appear before Heaven, prostrate myself, as an example for all to follow.” And the Franciscan bowed lowly and submissively, whilst the physician and the Jesuit fell on their knees. Aramis, even while he became paler than the
