The three musketeers
D’Artagnan was not the man ever to cry for quarter. The fight was
therefore prolonged for some seconds; but at length D’Artagnan dropped
his sword, which was broken in two pieces by the blow of a stick.
Another blow full upon his forehead at the same moment brought him to
the ground, covered with blood and almost fainting.
It was at this moment that people came flocking to the scene of action
from all sides. The host, fearful of consequences, with the help of his
servants carried the wounded man into the kitchen, where some trifling
attentions were bestowed upon him.
As to the gentleman, he resumed his place at the window, and surveyed
the crowd with a certain impatience, evidently annoyed by their
remaining undispersed.
“Well, how is it with this madman?” exclaimed he, turning round as the
noise of the door announced the entrance of the host, who came in to
inquire if he was unhurt.
“Your Excellency is safe and sound?” asked the host.
“Oh, yes! Perfectly safe and sound, my good host; and I wish to know
what has become of our young man.”
“He is better,” said the host, “he fainted quite away.”
“Indeed!” said the gentleman.
“But before he fainted, he collected all his strength to challenge you,
and to defy you while challenging you.”
“Why, this fellow must be the devil in person!” cried the stranger.
“Oh, no, your Excellency, he is not the devil,” replied the host, with
a grin of contempt; “for during his fainting we rummaged his valise and
found nothing but a clean shirt and eleven crowns—which however, did
not prevent his saying, as he was fainting, that if such a thing had
happened in Paris, you should have cause to repent of it at a later
period.”
“Then,” said the stranger coolly, “he must be some prince in disguise.”
“I have told you this, good sir,” resumed the host, “in order that you
may be on your guard.”
“Did he name no one in his passion?”
“Yes; he struck his pocket and said, ‘We shall see what Monsieur de
Tréville will think of this insult offered to his _protégé_.’”
“Monsieur de Tréville?” said the stranger, becoming attentive, “he put
his hand upon his pocket while pronouncing the name of Monsieur de
Tréville? Now, my dear host, while your young man was insensible, you
did not fail, I am quite sure, to ascertain what that pocket contained.
What was there in it?”
“A letter addressed to Monsieur de Tréville, captain of the
Musketeers.”
“Indeed!”
“Exactly as I have the honor to tell your Excellency.”
The host, who was not endowed with great perspicacity, did not observe
the expression which his words had given to the physiognomy of the
stranger. The latter rose from the front of the window, upon the sill
of which he had leaned with his elbow, and knitted his brow like a man
disquieted.
“The devil!” murmured he, between his teeth. “Can Tréville have set
this Gascon upon me? He is very young; but a sword thrust is a sword
thrust, whatever be the age of him who gives it, and a youth is less to
be suspected than an older man,” and the stranger fell into a reverie
which lasted some minutes. “A weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to
overthrow a great design.
“Host,” said he, “could you not contrive to get rid of this frantic boy
for me? In conscience, I cannot kill him; and yet,” added he, with a
coldly menacing expression, “he annoys me. Where is he?”
“In my wife’s chamber, on the first flight, where they are dressing his
wounds.”
“His things and his bag are with him? Has he taken off his doublet?”
“On the contrary, everything is in the kitchen. But if he annoys you,
this young fool—”
“To be sure he does. He causes a disturbance in your hostelry, which
respectable people cannot put up with. Go; make out my bill and notify
my servant.”
“What, monsieur, will you leave us so soon?”
“You know that very well, as I gave my order to saddle my horse. Have
they not obeyed me?”
“It is done; as your Excellency may have observed, your horse is in the
great gateway, ready saddled for your departure.”
“That is well; do as I have directed you, then.”
“What the devil!” said the host to himself. “Can he be afraid of this
boy?” But an imperious glance from the stranger stopped him short; he
bowed humbly and retired.
“It is not necessary for Milady* to be seen by this fellow,” continued
the stranger. “She will soon pass; she is already late. I had better
get on horseback, and go and meet her. I should like, however, to know
what this letter addressed to Tréville contains.” And the stranger,
muttering to himself, directed his steps toward the kitchen.
* We are well aware that this term, milady, is only properly used when
followed by a family name. But we find it thus in the manuscript, and
we do not choose to take upon ourselves to alter it.
In the meantime, the host, who entertained no doubt that it was the
presence of the young man that drove the stranger from his hostelry,
re-ascended to his wife’s chamber, and found D’Artagnan just recovering
his senses. Giving him to understand that the police would deal with
him pretty severely for having sought a quarrel with a great lord—for
in the opinion of the host the stranger could be nothing less than a
great lord—he insisted that notwithstanding his weakness D’Artagnan
should get up and depart as quickly as possible. D’Artagnan, half
stupefied, without his doublet, and with his head bound up in a linen
cloth, arose then, and urged by the host, began to descend the stairs;
but on arriving at the kitchen, the first thing he saw was his
antagonist talking calmly at the step of a heavy carriage, drawn by two
large Norman horses.
His interlocutor, whose head appeared through the carriage window, was
a woman of from twenty to two-and-twenty years. We have already
observed with what rapidity D’Artagnan seized the expression of a
countenance. He perceived then, at a glance, that this woman was young
and beautiful; and her style of beauty struck him more forcibly from
its being totally different from that of the southern countries in
which D’Artagnan had hitherto resided. She was pale and fair, with long
curls falling in profusion over her shoulders, had large, blue,
languishing eyes, rosy lips, and hands of alabaster. She was talking
with great animation with the stranger.
“His Eminence, then, orders me—” said the lady.
“To return instantly to England, and to inform him as soon as the duke
leaves London.”
“And as to my other instructions?” asked the fair traveler.
“They are contained in this box, which you will not open until you are
on the other side of the Channel.”
“Very well; and you—what will you do?”
“I—I return to Paris.”
“What, without chastising this insolent boy?” asked the lady.
The stranger was about to reply; but at the moment he opened his mouth,
D’Artagnan, who had heard all, precipitated himself over the threshold
of the door.
“This insolent boy chastises others,” cried he; “and I hope that this
time he whom he ought to chastise will not escape him as before.”
“Will not escape him?” replied the stranger, knitting his brow.
“No; before a woman you would dare not fly, I presume?”
“Remember,” said Milady, seeing the stranger lay his hand on his sword,
“the least delay may ruin everything.”
“You are right,” cried the gentleman; “begone then, on your part, and I
will depart as quickly on mine.” And bowing to the lady, he sprang into
his saddle, while her coachman applied his whip vigorously to his
horses. The two interlocutors thus separated, taking opposite
directions, at full gallop.
“Pay him, booby!” cried the stranger to his servant, without checking
the speed of his horse; and the man, after throwing two or three silver
pieces at the foot of mine host, galloped after his master.
“Base coward! false gentleman!” cried D’Artagnan, springing forward, in
his turn, after the servant. But his wound had rendered him too weak to
support such an exertion. Scarcely had he gone ten steps when his ears
began to tingle, a faintness seized him, a cloud of blood passed over
his eyes, and he fell in the middle of the street, crying still,
“Coward! coward! coward!”
“He is a coward, indeed,” grumbled the host, drawing near to
D’Artagnan, and endeavoring by this little flattery to make up matters
with the young man, as the heron of the fable did with the snail he had
despised the evening before.
“Yes, a base coward,” murmured D’Artagnan; “but she—she was very
beautiful.”
“What _she?_” demanded the host.
“Milady,” faltered D’Artagnan, and fainted a second time.
“Ah, it’s all one,” said the host; “I have lost two customers, but this
one remains, of whom I am pretty certain for some days to come. There
will be eleven crowns gained.”
It is to be remembered that eleven crowns was just the sum that
remained in D’Artagnan’s purse.
The host had reckoned upon eleven days of confinement at a crown a day,
but he had reckoned without his guest. On the following morning at five
o’clock D’Artagnan arose, and descending to the kitchen without help,
asked, among other ingredients the list of which has not come down to
us, for some oil, some wine, and some rosemary, and with his mother’s
recipe in his hand composed a balsam, with which he anointed his
numerous wounds, replacing his bandages himself, and positively
refusing the assistance of any doctor, D’Artagnan walked about that
same evening, and was almost cured by the morrow.
But when the time came to pay for his rosemary, this oil, and the wine,
the only expense the master had incurred, as he had preserved a strict
abstinence—while on the contrary, the yellow horse, by the account of
the hostler at least, had eaten three times as much as a horse of his
size could reasonably be supposed to have done—D’Artagnan found nothing
in his pocket but his little old velvet purse with the eleven crowns it
contained; for as to the letter addressed to M. de Tréville, it had
disappeared.
The young man commenced his search for the letter with the greatest
patience, turning out his pockets of all kinds over and over again,
rummaging and rerummaging in his valise, and opening and reopening his
purse; but when he found that he had come to the conviction that the
letter was not to be found, he flew, for the third time, into such a
rage as was near costing him a fresh consumption of wine, oil, and
rosemary—for upon seeing this hot-headed youth become exasperated and
threaten to destroy everything in the establishment if his letter were
not found, the host seized a spit, his wife a broom handle, and the
servants the same sticks they had used the day before.
“My letter of recommendation!” cried D’Artagnan, “my letter of
recommendation! or, the holy blood, I will spit you all like ortolans!”
Unfortunately, there was one circumstance which created a powerful
obstacle to the accomplishment of this threat; which was, as we have
related, that his sword had been in his first conflict broken in two,
and which he had entirely forgotten. Hence, it resulted when D’Artagnan
proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and
simply armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in
length, which the host had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the
rest of the blade, the master had slyly put that on one side to make
himself a larding pin.
But this deception would probably not have stopped our fiery young man
if the host had not reflected that the reclamation which his guest made
was perfectly just.
“But, after all,” said he, lowering the point of his spit, “where is
this letter?”
“Yes, where is this letter?” cried D’Artagnan. “In the first place, I
warn you that that letter is for Monsieur de Tréville, and it must be
found, or if it is not found, he will know how to find it.”