"I promise you, general," cried Athos, with a joy so great, that in spite of all his circumspection, he could not prevent its sparkling in his eyes.
Monk surprised this flash, and immediately extinguished it by one of those silent smiles which always caused his interlocutors to know they had made no inroad on his mind.
"Then, my lord, it is a week that you desire me to wait?"
"A week? yes, monsieur."
"And during those days what shall I do?"
"If there should be a battle, keep at a distance from it, I beseech you. I know the French delight in such amusements;--you might take a fancy to see how we fight, and you might receive some chance shot. Our Scotsmen are very bad marksmen, and I do not wish that a worthy gentleman like you should return to France wounded. Nor should I like to be obliged, myself, to send to your prince his million left here by you; for then it would be said, and with some reason, that I paid the Pretender to enable him to make war against the parliament. Go, then, monsieur, and let it be done as has been agreed upon."
"Ah, my lord," said Athos, "what joy it would give me to be the first that penetrated to the noble heart which beats beneath that cloak!"
"You think, then, that I have secrets," said Monk, without changing the half cheerful expression of his countenance. "Why, monsieur, what secret can you expect to find in the hollow head of a soldier? But it is getting late, and our torch is almost out; let us call our man."
"Hola!" cried Monk in French, approaching the stairs; "hola! fisherman!"
The fisherman, benumbed by the cold night air, replied in a hoarse voice, asking what they wanted of him.
"Go to the post," said Monk, "and order a sergeant, in the name of General Monk, to come here immediately."
This was a commission easily performed; for the sergeant, uneasy at the general's being in that desolate abbey, had drawn nearer by degrees, and was not much further off than the fisherman. The general's order was therefore heard by him, and he hastened to obey it.
"Get a horse and two men," said Monk.
"A horse and two men?" repeated the sergeant.
"Yes," replied Monk. "Have you got any means of getting a horse with a pack-saddle or two panniers?"
"No doubt, at a hundred paces off, in the Scottish camp."