The three musketeers
have confidence in you. I believe, then, that it is not on account of
any intrigues of her own that my wife has been arrested, but because of
those of a lady much greater than herself.”
“Ah, ah! Can it be on account of the amours of Madame de Bois-Tracy?”
said D’Artagnan, wishing to have the air, in the eyes of the citizen,
of being posted as to court affairs.
“Higher, monsieur, higher.”
“Of Madame d’Aiguillon?”
“Still higher.”
“Of Madame de Chevreuse?”
“Higher, much higher.”
“Of the—” D’Artagnan checked himself.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied the terrified citizen, in a tone so low that
he was scarcely audible.
“And with whom?”
“With whom can it be, if not the Duke of—”
“The Duke of—”
“Yes, monsieur,” replied the citizen, giving a still fainter intonation
to his voice.
“But how do you know all this?”
“How do I know it?”
“Yes, how do you know it? No half-confidence, or—you understand!”
“I know it from my wife, monsieur—from my wife herself.”
“Who learns it from whom?”
“From Monsieur Laporte. Did I not tell you that she was the goddaughter
of Monsieur Laporte, the confidential man of the queen? Well, Monsieur
Laporte placed her near her Majesty in order that our poor queen might
at least have someone in whom she could place confidence, abandoned as
she is by the king, watched as she is by the cardinal, betrayed as she
is by everybody.”
“Ah, ah! It begins to develop itself,” said D’Artagnan.
“Now, my wife came home four days ago, monsieur. One of her conditions
was that she should come and see me twice a week; for, as I had the
honor to tell you, my wife loves me dearly—my wife, then, came and
confided to me that the queen at that very moment entertained great
fears.”
“Truly!”
“Yes. The cardinal, as it appears, pursues her and persecutes her more
than ever. He cannot pardon her the history of the Saraband. You know
the history of the Saraband?”
“_Pardieu!_ Know it!” replied D’Artagnan, who knew nothing about it,
but who wished to appear to know everything that was going on.
“So that now it is no longer hatred, but vengeance.”
“Indeed!”
“And the queen believes—”
“Well, what does the queen believe?”
“She believes that someone has written to the Duke of Buckingham in her
name.”
“In the queen’s name?”
“Yes, to make him come to Paris; and when once come to Paris, to draw
him into some snare.”
“The devil! But your wife, monsieur, what has she to do with all this?”
“Her devotion to the queen is known; and they wish either to remove her
from her mistress, or to intimidate her, in order to obtain her
Majesty’s secrets, or to seduce her and make use of her as a spy.”
“That is likely,” said D’Artagnan; “but the man who has abducted her—do
you know him?”
“I have told you that I believe I know him.”
“His name?”
“I do not know that; what I do know is that he is a creature of the
cardinal, his evil genius.”
“But you have seen him?”
“Yes, my wife pointed him out to me one day.”
“Has he anything remarkable about him by which one may recognize him?”
“Oh, certainly; he is a noble of very lofty carriage, black hair,
swarthy complexion, piercing eye, white teeth, and has a scar on his
temple.”
“A scar on his temple!” cried D’Artagnan; “and with that, white teeth,
a piercing eye, dark complexion, black hair, and haughty carriage—why,
that’s my man of Meung.”
“He is your man, do you say?”
“Yes, yes; but that has nothing to do with it. No, I am wrong. On the
contrary, that simplifies the matter greatly. If your man is mine, with
one blow I shall obtain two revenges, that’s all; but where to find
this man?”
“I know not.”
“Have you no information as to his abiding place?”
“None. One day, as I was conveying my wife back to the Louvre, he was
coming out as she was going in, and she showed him to me.”
“The devil! The devil!” murmured D’Artagnan; “all this is vague enough.
From whom have you learned of the abduction of your wife?”
“From Monsieur Laporte.”
“Did he give you any details?”
“He knew none himself.”
“And you have learned nothing from any other quarter?”
“Yes, I have received—”
“What?”
“I fear I am committing a great imprudence.”
“You always come back to that; but I must make you see this time that
it is too late to retreat.”
“I do not retreat, _mordieu!_” cried the citizen, swearing in order to
rouse his courage. “Besides, by the faith of Bonacieux—”
“You call yourself Bonacieux?” interrupted D’Artagnan.
“Yes, that is my name.”
“You said, then, by the word of Bonacieux. Pardon me for interrupting
you, but it appears to me that that name is familiar to me.”
“Possibly, monsieur. I am your landlord.”
“Ah, ah!” said D’Artagnan, half rising and bowing; “you are my
landlord?”
“Yes, monsieur, yes. And as it is three months since you have been
here, and though, distracted as you must be in your important
occupations, you have forgotten to pay me my rent—as, I say, I have not
tormented you a single instant, I thought you would appreciate my
delicacy.”
“How can it be otherwise, my dear Bonacieux?” replied D’Artagnan;
“trust me, I am fully grateful for such unparalleled conduct, and if,
as I told you, I can be of any service to you—”
“I believe you, monsieur, I believe you; and as I was about to say, by
the word of Bonacieux, I have confidence in you.”
“Finish, then, what you were about to say.”
The citizen took a paper from his pocket, and presented it to
D’Artagnan.
“A letter?” said the young man.
“Which I received this morning.”
D’Artagnan opened it, and as the day was beginning to decline, he
approached the window to read it. The citizen followed him.
“‘Do not seek your wife,’” read D’Artagnan; “‘she will be restored to
you when there is no longer occasion for her. If you make a single step
to find her you are lost.’
“That’s pretty positive,” continued D’Artagnan; “but after all, it is
but a menace.”
“Yes; but that menace terrifies me. I am not a fighting man at all,
monsieur, and I am afraid of the Bastille.”
“Hum!” said D’Artagnan. “I have no greater regard for the Bastille than
you. If it were nothing but a sword thrust, why then—”
“I have counted upon you on this occasion, monsieur.”
“Yes?”
“Seeing you constantly surrounded by Musketeers of a very superb
appearance, and knowing that these Musketeers belong to Monsieur de
Tréville, and were consequently enemies of the cardinal, I thought that
you and your friends, while rendering justice to your poor queen, would
be pleased to play his Eminence an ill turn.”
“Without doubt.”
“And then I have thought that considering three months’ lodging, about
which I have said nothing—”
“Yes, yes; you have already given me that reason, and I find it
excellent.”
“Reckoning still further, that as long as you do me the honor to remain
in my house I shall never speak to you about rent—”
“Very kind!”
“And adding to this, if there be need of it, meaning to offer you fifty
pistoles, if, against all probability, you should be short at the
present moment.”
“Admirable! You are rich then, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux?”
“I am comfortably off, monsieur, that’s all; I have scraped together
some such things as an income of two or three thousand crowns in the
haberdashery business, but more particularly in venturing some funds in
the last voyage of the celebrated navigator Jean Moquet; so that you
understand, monsieur—But!—” cried the citizen.
“What!” demanded D’Artagnan.
“Whom do I see yonder?”
“Where?”
“In the street, facing your window, in the embrasure of that door—a man
wrapped in a cloak.”
“It is he!” cried D’Artagnan and the citizen at the same time, each
having recognized his man.
“Ah, this time,” cried D’Artagnan, springing to his sword, “this time
he will not escape me!”
Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he rushed out of the apartment. On
the staircase he met Athos and Porthos, who were coming to see him.
They separated, and D’Artagnan rushed between them like a dart.
“Pah! Where are you going?” cried the two Musketeers in a breath.
“The man of Meung!” replied D’Artagnan, and disappeared.
D’Artagnan had more than once related to his friends his adventure with
the stranger, as well as the apparition of the beautiful foreigner, to
whom this man had confided some important missive.
The opinion of Athos was that D’Artagnan had lost his letter in the
skirmish. A gentleman, in his opinion—and according to D’Artagnan’s
portrait of him, the stranger must be a gentleman—would be incapable of
the baseness of stealing a letter.
Porthos saw nothing in all this but a love meeting, given by a lady to
a cavalier, or by a cavalier to a lady, which had been disturbed by the
presence of D’Artagnan and his yellow horse.
Aramis said that as these sorts of affairs were mysterious, it was
better not to fathom them.
They understood, then, from the few words which escaped from
D’Artagnan, what affair was in hand, and as they thought that
overtaking his man, or losing sight of him, D’Artagnan would return to
his rooms, they kept on their way.
When they entered D’Artagnan’s chamber, it was empty; the landlord,
dreading the consequences of the encounter which was doubtless about to
take place between the young man and the stranger, had, consistent with
the character he had given himself, judged it prudent to decamp.
Chapter IX.
D’ARTAGNAN SHOWS HIMSELF
As Athos and Porthos had foreseen, at the expiration of a half hour,
D’Artagnan returned. He had again missed his man, who had disappeared
as if by enchantment. D’Artagnan had run, sword in hand, through all
the neighboring streets, but had found nobody resembling the man he
sought for. Then he came back to the point where, perhaps, he ought to
have begun, and that was to knock at the door against which the
stranger had leaned; but this proved useless—for though he knocked ten
or twelve times in succession, no one answered, and some of the
neighbors, who put their noses out of their windows or were brought to
their doors by the noise, had assured him that that house, all the
openings of which were tightly closed, had not been inhabited for six
months.
While D’Artagnan was running through the streets and knocking at doors,
Aramis had joined his companions; so that on returning home D’Artagnan
found the reunion complete.
“Well!” cried the three Musketeers all together, on seeing D’Artagnan
enter with his brow covered with perspiration and his countenance upset
with anger.
“Well!” cried he, throwing his sword upon the bed, “this man must be
the devil in person; he has disappeared like a phantom, like a shade,
like a specter.”
“Do you believe in apparitions?” asked Athos of Porthos.
“I never believe in anything I have not seen, and as I never have seen
apparitions, I don’t believe in them.”
“The Bible,” said Aramis, “makes our belief in them a law; the ghost of
Samuel appeared to Saul, and it is an article of faith that I should be
very sorry to see any doubt thrown upon, Porthos.”
“At all events, man or devil, body or shadow, illusion or reality, this
man is born for my damnation; for his flight has caused us to miss a
glorious affair, gentlemen—an affair by which there were a hundred
pistoles, and perhaps more, to be gained.”
“How is that?” cried Porthos and Aramis in a breath.
As to Athos, faithful to his system of reticence, he contented himself
with interrogating D’Artagnan by a look.
“Planchet,” said D’Artagnan to his domestic, who just then insinuated
his head through the half-open door in order to catch some fragments of
the conversation, “go down to my landlord, Monsieur Bonacieux, and ask
him to send me half a dozen bottles of Beaugency wine; I prefer that.”