The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [101]
The appearance of the caravan was most impressive; their black horses, their martial air, and that squadron training which makes a musketeer’s mount keep in perfect step with his fellows would have betrayed the strictest incognito. The lackeys followed, armed to the teeth.
All went well as far as Chantilly which they reached at eight in the morning. Eager for breakfast, they alighted at an inn under a sign displaying Saint Martin giving half his cloak to a beggar. The lackeys were told to keep the horses saddled and to be ready to set off again immediately.
Our friends entered the common room and sat down. A gentleman who had just arrived by the Dammartin road was breakfasting at the same table. He started talking about the weather, the travelers answered, he drank their healths, and they returned the politeness.
But just as Mousqueton came to announce that their horses were ready and our friends rose, the stranger proposed to Porthos that they drink to the Cardinal. Porthos replied that he would like nothing better if the stranger would, in turn, drink to the King. The stranger countered that he recognized no other King but His Eminence. Porthos called him a drunkard; the stranger drew his sword.
“You were foolish,” said Athos, “but, never mind, you can’t draw back now. Kill the man and join us as soon as you can.”
All three remounted their horses and left at a gallop while Porthos was promising his opponent to puncture him with every thrust known to fencing.
“There goes victim Number One,” said Athos after they had advanced some five hundred paces.
“But why did the fellow choose Porthos?” Aramis asked.
“Porthos spoke louder than the rest of us,” D’Artagnan explained. “The fellow took him for our leader.”
“Ah, this lad from Gascony is a well of wisdom,” Athos murmured.
And the travelers continued on their way.
At Beauvais they stopped to give their horses a breathing spell and to wait for Porthos. After two hours, Porthos having failed to arrive or to forward news, they resumed their journey.
A league from Beauvais, at a place where the road narrowed between two high banks, they came upon a dozen men who, taking advantage of the fact that the road was unpaved at that spot, seemed to be busy digging holes to deepen the muddy ruts.
Aramis, fearing to soil his boots in this artificial trench, cursed them roundly. Athos sought to restrain him but it was too late. The workmen started to jeer at the travelers; at their insolence even the phlegmatic Athos lost his head and urged his horse against one of them.
At this the workmen retreated as far as the ditch from which each produced a hidden musket. The result was that our seven travelers were literally riddled with bullets. Aramis received one which pierced his shoulder; Mousqueton another which embedded itself in the fleshy parts which prolong the small of the back. Only Mousqueton fell from his horse—not that he was badly hurt, but as he could not see his wound he fancied himself more seriously hurt than he was.
“This is an ambush,” said D’Artagnan. “Don’t waste a shot! Let us be off!”
Aramis, wounded though he was, seized his horse’s mane and was borne off headlong with the rest. Mousqueton’s horse, rejoining the group, galloped on in formation, riderless.
“That will give us a remount,” said Athos.
“I would prefer a hat,” D’Artagnan remarked. “Mine was carried away by a bullet. How very fortunate that I did not carry my letter in it.”
“Look here,” Aramis said anxiously, “do you realize they’ll kill poor Porthos when he comes up?”
“If Porthos were on his legs he would have joined us long ago. I fancy that on the dueling ground that so-called drunkard sobered up miraculously!”
They galloped on for another two hours at top speed though their horses began to give signs of failing.
Hoping to avoid