ing to a noble Frenchman, to a man of
heart. The gold contained in these two casks before us, I have told you
was mine. I was wrong--it is the first lie I have pronounced in my life,
a temporary lie, it is true. This gold is the property of King Charles
II., exiled from his country, driven from his palaces, the orphan at
once of his father and his throne, and deprived of everything, even of
the melancholy happiness of kissing on his knees the stone upon which
the hands of his murderers have written that simple epitaph which will
eternally cry out for vengeance upon them:--'HERE LIES CHARLES I.'"

Monk grew slightly pale, and an imperceptible shudder crept over his
skin and raised his gray mustache.

"I," continued Athos, "I, Comte de la Fere, the last, only faithful
friend the poor abandoned prince has left, I have offered him to come
hither to find the man upon whom now depends the fate of royalty and of
England; and I have come, and placed myself under the eye of this man,
and have placed myself naked and unarmed in his hands, saying:--'My
lord, here are the last resources of a prince whom God made your master,
whom his birth made your king; upon you, and you alone, depend his life
and future. Will you employ this money in consoling England for the
evils it must have suffered from anarchy; that is to say, will you aid,
and if not aid, will you allow King Charles II. to act? You are master,
you are king, all-powerful master and king, for chance sometimes defeats
the work of time and God. I am here alone with you, my lord: if divided
success alarms you, if my complicity annoys you, you are armed, my lord,
and here is a grave ready dug; if, on the contrary, the enthusiasm of
your cause carries you away, if you are what you appear to be, if your
hand in what it undertakes obeys your mind, and your mind your heart,
here are the means of ruining forever the cause of your enemy, Charles
Stuart. Kill, then, the man you have before you, for that man will never
return to him who has sent him without bearing with him the deposit
which Charles I., his father, confided to him, and keep the gold which
may assist in carrying on the civil war. Alas! my lord, it is the
fate of this unfortunate prince. He must either corrupt or kill, for
everything resists him, everything repulses him, everything is hostile
to him; and yet he is marked with divine seal, and he must, not to
belie his blood, reascend the throne, or die upon the sacred so