The Three Musketeers. Александр Дюма

lady with a bow, he got into the saddle, whilst the coachman whipped his horses. The lady and gentleman therefore went off at a gallop towards the opposite ends of the street.

      “Hollo! your bill!” shouted mine host, whose affection for the traveller was changed to the most profound contempt when he saw him departing without paying.

      “Pay, rascal,” cried the traveller, as he galloped off, to his valet, who threw three or four pieces of silver at the feet of the landlord, and set off at full speed the way his master went.

      “Oh, coward! wretch! false-hearted gentleman!” cried d’Artagnan, rushing after the valet. But he was still too feeble from his wounds to bear such an effort. Scarcely had he gone ten paces, before his ears tingled, a vertigo seized him, a cloud passed before his eyes, and he fell down in the street, with a final cry of “Coward! coward! coward!”

      “He is a sad coward verily,” murmured the host, who now, approaching d’Artagnan, endeavoured to soothe him by this flattery, as the heron in the fable her friend the snail.

      “Yes, a sad coward,” murmured d’Artagnan; “but she is beautiful.”

      “Who is she?” said the landlord.

      “My lady!” murmured d’Artagnan, and again fainted away.

      “Never mind,” said the host; “although I have lost two, at any rate I have secured this one, whom I am sure of keeping for some days; at all events, I shall gain eleven crowns.”

      It must be borne in mind that eleven crowns was the exact sum which remained in d’Artagnan’s purse; and the host had reckoned upon eleven days’ illness, at a crown a day. On this point, however, he reckoned without his guest. The following day d’Artagnan left his couch, went down to the kitchen, and, besides certain ingredients, the names of which have not descended to posterity, demanded some wine, oil, and rosemary, which, with his mother’s recipe in his hand, he compounded into a salve, wherewith he anointed his numerous wounds, renewing his plasters himself, and not allowing the interposition of any leech.

      Thanks, no doubt, to the Bohemian salve, and perhaps also to the absence of the leech, d’Artagnan found himself on foot in the evening, and almost cured by the next day. But at the moment he was paying for this wine, oil, and rosemary, the sole expense he had incurred (for he had been completely abstinent, whilst, on the contrary, if one believed the hostler, the yellow horse had eaten three times as many oats as one would have supposed possible from his size), d’Artagnan found nothing in his pocket but his little purse, with its eleven crowns. As for the letter to M. de Treville, that was gone. The young man began by looking very patiently for this letter, turning out and rummaging his pockets and fobs twenty times, rummaging his valise again and again, and opening and shutting his purse; but when he was quite convinced that the letter was not to be found, he gave full vent to another fit of rage in a manner which was like to make necessary a second decoction of wine and spiced oil. For, upon beholding this young scatter-brain raging, and threatening to destroy everything in his establishment, if the letter were not found, the host had already seized upon a spit, his wife upon the handle of a broom, and the servants upon the same weapons they had wielded the evening before.

      “My letter of introduction!” cried d’Artagnan, “my letter of introduction! or, by St. Denis, I will spit you all like so many ortolans.”

      One circumstance prevented the youth from accomplishing his threat, which was, that his sword, as we have said, had unfortunately been broken in two in the first struggle—a mischance he had entirely forgotten; consequently, when d’Artagnan went to draw it in earnest, he found himself armed only with the stump, about eight or ten inches long, which the host had carefully thrust into the scabbard. As for the rest of the blade, the cook had adroitly set it aside for a larding-pin. And yet it is probable that this deception would not have stopped our fiery youth, had not the host reflected that the demand which his guest made was perfectly just.

      “But after all,” said he, lowering his spit, “where is this letter?”

      “Yes, where is this letter?” roared d’Artagnan; “and let me tell you that this letter is for M. de Treville, and that it must be found, otherwise M. de Treville will know to have it found—I’ll answer for it!”

      This threat completely frightened mine host. Next to the king and the cardinal, M. de Treville was the man whose name was most frequently in the mouths of the military, and indeed of the citizens. There was certainly, Father Joseph; but his name was never mentioned except in an undertone; so great was the terror which his gray eminence, as the familiar of the cardinal was called, inspired. Therefore, throwing away his spit, and ordering his wife to do the same with her broom-handle, and the servants with their weapons, he himself set the example by commencing a diligent search for the letter.

      “Did this letter contain anything valuable?” said he, after some moments of fruitless search.

      “I should rather think it did,” cried the Gascon, who calculated on the letter to make his way at court; “it contained my fortune.”

      “Were they bills on the Bank of Spain?” demanded the host, much disturbed.

      “Bills on the private treasury of his majesty!” replied d’Artagnan, who, calculating on entering the king’s service through this letter of introduction, thought he might, without lying, make this somewhat rash reply.

      “The devil!” exclaimed the host, at his wit’s end.

      “But it is of no consequence,” continued d’Artagnan, with his native assurance; “the money is nothing, the letter is all I want. I had rather have lost a thousand pistoles than that!” He might as well have made it twenty thousand, but a certain youthful modesty restrained him. A sudden flash of light illumined the mind of the host, who was uttering maledictions at finding nothing.

      “This letter is not lost!” he cried.

      “Isn’t it?” said d’Artagnan.

      “No, it has been taken from you.”

      “Taken! and by whom?”

      “By the stranger, yesterday; he went into the kitchen, where your doublet was lying; he was there for a time entirely alone; and I will lay a wager it was he who stole it from you.”

      “You really think so?” said d’Artagnan, only half convinced, for he knew better than anybody the strictly personal value of the letter, and saw nothing in it to excite cupidity. The fact is, that none of the servants or travellers who were there could have gained anything by the theft.

      “You say, then,” continued d’Artagnan, “that you suspect this impertinent gentleman?”

      “I tell you that I am quite certain of it,” said the host; “when I informed him that your worship was the protege of M. de Treville, and that you had a letter for that illustrious noble, he appeared much disturbed, demanded where the letter was, and immediately went into the kitchen, where your doublet was lying.”

      “Then he is the robber,” said d’Artagnan; “I will complain to M. de Treville, and he will lay my complaint before his majesty.”

      And he majestically drew from his pocket two crowns, which he handed to the host, who followed him, cap in hand, to the archway, where he remounted his yellow horse, which carried him without further accident to the gate of St. Antoine, at Paris. There its owner sold the animal for three crowns; which was a good price, considering that d’Artagnan had over-ridden him in the last part of the journey. The dealer to whom he sold the sheltie for these nine francs, did not conceal from the young man that he paid this exorbitant sum merely on account of the originality of his colour.

      D’Artagnan therefore entered Paris on foot, carrying his small valise under his arm, and proceeded until he found a lodging suitable to his slender resources. This chamber was a sort of garret, situated in the Rue des Fossoyeurs, near the Luxembourg. Having paid the luckpenny, he took possession of his lodging, and passed the remainder of the day in sewing on his doublet and breeches sundry laces which his mother had secretly taken from