The Three Musketeers

“Be it how it may,” said d’Artagnan, “man or devil, body or shadow, illusion or reality, this man is born to be my bane; for his escape has caused us to lose a fine opportunity—one, gentlemen, by which an hundred pistoles, or more, were to be gained!”

“How is that?” asked Aramis and Porthos; but Athos, true to his principle of silence, merely interrogated d’Artagnan by a look.

“Planchet,” said d’Artagnan, “go to my landlord, M. Bonancieux, and tell him to send me half a dozen bottles of Beaugency, which is my favourite wine.”

“Ah! then you have credit with your landlord?” demanded Porthos.

“Yes, from this day,” said d’Artagnan; “and be assured that if the wine is bad, we will send to him for better.”

“You should use, and not abuse,” sententiously remarked Aramis.

“I always said that d’Artagnan had the best head of the four,” said Athos; who, having delivered himself of this opinion, which d’Artagnan acknowledged by a bow, relapsed into his usual silence.

“But now let us hear what is the scheme,” demanded Porthos.

“Yes,” said Aramis, “confide in us, my dear friend; at least, if the honour of some lady be not compromised.”

“Be easy,” replied d’Artagnan, “the honour of no one shall be in danger from what I have to tell you.” He then related, word for word, his intercourse with his landlord; and how the man who had carried off the worthy mercer’s wife was the same with whom he had quarrelled at the Jolly Miller, at Meung.

“The thing looks well,” said Athos, after he had tasted the wine like a connoisseur, and testified by an approving nod of the head that it was good; and had calculated also whether it was worth while to risk four heads for sixty or seventy pistoles.

“But, observe,” said d’Artagnan, “that there is a woman in the case; a woman who is carried off, and no doubt threatened, perhaps tortured, merely on account of her fidelity to her royal mistress.”

“Take care, d’Artagnan—take care,” said Aramis; “in my opinion you are too interested in Madame Bonancieux. Woman was created for our destruction; and from her all our miseries arise.”

Athos frowned, and bit his lip, whilst he listened to this profound opinion.

“It is not for Madame Bonancieux that I distress myself,” said d’Artagnan, “but for the queen, whom the king abandons, whom the cardinal persecutes, and who sees the execution of all her truest friends in succession.”

“But why will she love what we most detest—the English and the Spaniards?” asked Athos.

“Spain is her country,” replied d’Artagnan, “and it is but natural that she should love the Spaniards, who are her compatriots. As to your first reproach, I never heard that she loved the English, but an Englishman.”

“And truly,” replied Athos, “one must confess, that that Englishman is well worthy of being loved. I never saw a man of a more noble air.”

“Besides, you do not consider the perfect style in which he dresses,” said Porthos. “I was at the Louvre the day he scattered his pearls, and I picked up two which sold for twenty pistoles. Do you know him, Aramis?”

“As well as you do, gentlemen; for I was one of those who arrested him in the garden at Amiens, where the queen’s equerry, M. de Putange, had introduced me. I was at the seminary at that time, and the adventure appeared to me to bear hard upon the king.”

“Which would not hinder me,” said d’Artagnan, “from taking him by the hand, and conducting him to the queen; if it were only to enrage the cardinal. Our one eternal enemy is the cardinal; and if we could find the means of doing him some injury, I confess that I would willingly risk my life to employ them.”

“And the mercer told you, d’Artagnan,” said Athos, “that the queen thought they had decoyed Buckingham into France by some false information?”

“She fears so! And I am convinced,” added d’Artagnan, “that the abduction of this woman, one of the queen’s suite, has some connection with the circumstances of which we are speaking, and perhaps with the presence of his grace the Duke of Buckingham in Paris.”

“The Gascon is full of imagination,” said Porthos.

“I like to hear him talk,” said Athos; “his dialect amuses me.”

“Gentlemen,” said Aramis, “listen!”

“Let us attend to Aramis!” exclaimed the three friends.

“Yesterday, I was at the house of a learned doctor of theology whom I sometimes consult on technical difficulties.”

Athos smiled.

“He lives in a retired spot, convenient to his tastes and his profession. Now, just as I was leaving his house———” Here Aramis hesitated.

“Well!” said his auditors—“just as you were leaving his house?”

Aramis appeared to make an effort, like a man who, in the full swing of making up a story, finds himself suddenly arrested by an unforeseen obstacle; but, as the eyes of his three friends were upon him, he could not by any means draw back.

“This doctor has a niece,” continued Aramis.

“Oh! he has a niece,” interrupted Porthos.

“Yes, a lady of the highest morality,” said Aramis.

The three friends began to laugh.

“Ah! if you either laugh or make insinuations, you shall hear no more,” said Aramis.

“We are credulous as the Mahometans, and dumb as catafalks!” said Athos.

“Then I will continue,” said Aramis. “This niece comes sometimes to see her uncle, and as she was there by chance yesterday at the same time that I was, I was obliged to offer to conduct her to the carriage.”

“Ah! the niece of this doctor has a carriage,” interrupted Porthos, whose chief fault consisted in having too long a tongue. “A desirable connection, my friend!”

“Porthos,” said Aramis, “I have often intimated to you, that you are very indiscreet, and it does you no good in the eyes of gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen,” said d’Artagnan, who saw how the adventure arose, “the thing is serious; let us endeavour to avoid joking. Go on, Aramis; go on.”

“All of a sudden a tall, dark man, with the manners of a gentleman—like your man, d’Artagnan———”

“The same, perhaps,” said the Gascon.

“It is possible!” said Aramis; “however, he approached me, accompanied by six or seven men, who followed him at about ten paces’ distance, and then, in the most polite tone, said, ‘My lord duke, and you, madame,’ addressing the lady———”

“What! the doctor’s niece?” said Porthos.

“Silence, Porthos,” said Athos; “you are insupportable.”

“‘Please to enter that carriage, without resistance, and in silence.’”

“He took you for Buckingham?” said d’Artagnan.

“Almost certainly,” said Aramis.