The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [102]
“Morbleu!” Athos cried to D’Artagnan, as they raced off, the cavalcade reduced to themselves and Grimaud and Planchet, “I vow I won’t play into their hands again; no one will make me open my mouth or draw my sword till we reach Calais!”
“Let us make no vows; let us gallop if our horses can manage it!”
And the travelers dug their spurs in their horses’ flanks, thanks to which vigorous stimulation the steeds regained their strength. The quartet reached Amiens at midnight and alighted at the Sign of the Golden Lily.
The host looked like the most honest man on earth; he received them with a candlestick in one hand and his cotton nightcap in the other. He begged to lodge the masters each in a comfortable room, but unfortunately these charming rooms were at opposite ends of the inn. D’Artagnan and Athos refused. The host protested that he had no other rooms worthy of Their Excellencies, to which Their Excellencies replied that they would sleep on mattresses in the public chamber. The host was insistent but the travelers held their ground and he had perforce to do their bidding.
They had just arranged their bedding and barricaded the door from within when there was a knock at the courtyard shutter. They asked who was there and recognized the voices of Planchet and Grimaud.
“Grimaud can take care of the horses,” Planchet volunteered, “and if you gentlemen are willing, I shall sleep across the doorway. Thus you will be certain that no one can reach you.”
“On what will you sleep, Planchet?” D’Artagnan asked. The valet produced a bundle of straw. “Very well!” D’Artagnan acquiesced. “Mine host’s face inspires me with scant confidence; it is altogether too affable.”
“I quite agree,” said Athos.
Planchet climbed in through the window and settled himself across the door; Grimaud went off to lock himself in the stable, promising that he and the four horses would be ready by five o’clock in the morning.
The night passed off quietly enough though at about two o’clock someone tried the door. Planchet awoke with a start, crying, “Who goes there?”
“A mistake,” came the answer. “Your pardon!”
And the intruder withdrew.
At four o’clock in the morning they heard a terrible riot in the stables. Grimaud had sought to awaken the stable boys; they had turned upon him and beaten him severely.
Opening the window of the stable, Athos and D’Artagnan saw the poor lad lying senseless on the ground, his head split. Some ostler had struck him from behind with the handle of a pitchfork.
Planchet ran to the yard to saddle the horses. They were utterly foundered; only Mousqueton’s, which had run riderless for about six hours, was fit to proceed. However, it appeared that, by some inconceivable error, a veterinary, who had been sent for to bleed the host’s horse, had bled Mousqueton’s instead.
All this was becoming most annoying. Perhaps these successive accidents were the result of chance; but they might quite as probably be the result of a plot. Athos and D’Artagnan returned to the inn while Planchet set out to find out whether there were not three horses for sale in the neighborhood. At the gate of the inn, Planchet saw two horses, fresh, strong and fully equipped; they would have suited his masters perfectly. Inquiring to whom the nags belonged, he was told their owners had spent the night at the inn and were now settling their accounts with the landlord.
Athos went downstairs to pay the bill while D’Artagnan and Planchet waited for him at the street door. The host’s office was in a low-ceilinged back room to which Athos was requested to go. Entering without the least mistrust, he found the host