You just now spoke of a deposit which the late king transmitted through you to his son--are you, then, one of those Frenchmen who, as I have heard, endeavored to carry off Charles I.from Whitehall ?" "Yes, my lord; it was I who was beneath the scaffold during the execution; I, who had not been able to redeem it, received upon my brow the blood of the martyred king.

I received, at the same time, the last word of Charles I.; it was to me he said, 'REMEMBER!' and in saying, 'Remember!' he alluded to the money at your feet, my lord." "I have heard much of you, monsieur," said Monk, "but I am happy to have, in the first place, appreciated you by my own observations, and not by my remembrances.

I will give you, then, explanations that I have given to no other, and you will appreciate what a distinction I make between you and the persons who have hitherto been sent to me." Athos bowed and prepared to absorb greedily the words which fell, one by one, from the mouth of Monk,--those words rare and precious as the dew in the desert.
"You spoke to me," said Monk, "of Charles II.; but pray, monsieur, of what consequence to me is that phantom of a king?
I have grown old in a war and in a policy which are nowadays so closely linked together, that every man of the sword must fight in virtue of his rights or his ambition with a personal interest, and not blindly behind an officer, as in ordinary wars.

For myself, I perhaps desire nothing, but I fear much.
In the war of to-day rests the liberty of England, and, perhaps, that of every Englishman.

How can you expect that I, free in the position I have made for myself, should go willingly and hold out my hands to the shackles of a stranger?
That is all Charles is to me.