Part 79 (1/2)
”Tranquil, yes,” replied Cromwell ”But who told you I was inactive?”
”But--if the plot had succeeded?”
”I wished it to do so”
”I thought your excellence considered the death of Charles I as a land”
”Yes, his death; but it would have been more seemly not upon the scaffold”
”Why so?” asked Mordaunt
Cromwell smiled ”Because it could have been said that I had had him condemned for the sake of justice and had let him escape out of pity”
”But if he had escaped?”
”Impossible; my precautions were taken”
”And does your honor know the four men who undertook to rescue him?”
”The four Frenchmen, of whom tere sent by the queen to her husband and two by Mazarin to me”
”And do you think Mazarin commissioned them to act as they have done?”
”It is possible But he will not avow it”
”How so?”
”Because they failed”
”Your honor gave hting for Charles I Now that they are guilty of a conspiracy against England will your honor give me all four of them?”
”Take them,” said Cromwell
Mordaunt boith a smile of triumphant ferocity
”Did the people shout at all?” Cro live Cromwell!'”
”Where were you placed?”
Mordaunt tried for a eneral's face if this was si But his piercing eyes could by no means penetrate the sombre depths of Cromwell's
”I was so situated as to hear and see everything,” he answered
It was now Cromwell's turn to look fixedly at Mordaunt, and Mordaunt to make himself impenetrable
”It appears,” said Cromwell, ”that this improvised executioner did his duty remarkably well The blow, so they tell me at least, was struck with a master's hand”
Mordaunt remembered that Cromwell had told him he had had no detailed account, and he was now quite convinced that the general had been present at the execution, hidden behind some screen or curtain
”In fact,” said Mordaunt, with a calle blow sufficed”
”Perhaps it was some one in that occupation,” said Cromwell
”Do you think so, sir? He did not look like an executioner”
”And who else save an executioner would have wished to fill that horrible office?”
”But,” said Mordaunt, ”it , who had eance and accomplished it in this way Perhaps it was so the fallen king, and who, learning that the king was about to flee and escape him, threw himself in the ith a mask on his face and an axe in his hand, not as substitute for the executioner, but as an ambassador of Fate”
”Possibly”
”And if that were the case would your honor condee It rests between his conscience and his God”
”But if your honor knew this man?”
”I neither know nor wish to know him Provided Charles is dead, it is the axe, not thewould have been rescued”
Cromwell smiled
”They would have carried him to Greenwich,” he said, ”and put him on board a felucca with five barrels of powder in the hold Once out to sea, you are too good a politician not to understand the rest, Mordaunt”
”Yes, they would have all been blown up”
”Just so The explosion would have done what the axe had failed to do Men would have said that the king had escaped human justice and been overtaken by God's You see nohy I did not care to know your gentleman in the mask; for really, in spite of his excellent intentions, I could not thank him for what he has done”
Mordaunt bowed humbly ”Sir,” he said, ”you are a profound thinker and your plan was sublime”