The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [169]
The Englishman smiled as at a joke but Athos spoke in deadly earnest.
“Are you ready, gentlemen?” Athos asked and, as friend and foe agreed, “On guard, then!” he cried.
At once eight swords flashed across the rays of the setting sun and the combat began with a fury natural between men who had double reason to be vindictive. Athos fenced calmly and methodically as at a practice bout in a fencing hall; Porthos, sobered by his mishap at Chantilly, sparred with careful strategy; Aramis, Canto III of his poem unfinished, hastened to get done with the fighting.
Athos was the first to dispatch his adversary. One thrust sufficed; as he had prophesied, the Englishman fell dead, pierced through the heart. Porthos was the second to settle his opponent, who fell to the grass with a wound in the thigh. The Englishman meekly surrendered his sword and Porthos, picking him up in his arms, carried him back to his coach. Aramis harried his opponent so forcefully that the Englishman, having retreated over fifty paces, took frankly to his heels amid the jeers of the lackeys.
As for D’Artagnan, he first stood purely and simply on the defensive; eventually, when he saw he had exhausted his opponent, he disarmed him with a flanconade, a turn of the wrist in quarto. The Englishman, swordless, took a few steps backward, but his foot slipped and he fell to the ground. One leap and D’Artagnan was on him, his sword point on the other’s throat.
“I could kill you, Monsieur,” cried the Gascon, “for you are at my mercy. But I prefer to grant you your life for the sake of your sister.”
D’Artagnan smiled as widely in triumph of the fulfilment of his plans as he had smiled in hatching them.
Delighted with his opponent’s courtesy, the Englishman rose, embraced D’Artagnan, shook hands all round and patted the three musketeers on the back. Then, since Porthos had already carried his adversary back to an alarmed English coachman and Aramis had put his Englishman to flight, they turned their attention to the dead man.
As Porthos and Aramis undressed him, hoping desperately that he was not mortally wounded, a heavy purse fell to the ground. D’Artagnan picked it up and handed it to Lord Winter.
“What the devil shall I do with that?” the Englishman asked.
“Will you be so kind as to return it to his family?”
“His family would not be interested,” the Englishman answered. “His death brings them fifteen thousand louis a year. Give the purse to your lackeys for a tip.”
D’Artagnan pocketed it.
“And now my friend, if I may call you so,” Lord Winter said to D’Artagnan, “I shall present you to my sister, Lady Clark, this very evening. I should like her to feel as cordially toward you as I do. She is not out of favor at Court; indeed, she might well put in a word for you that might serve in the future.”
D’Artagnan, blushing, made a bow. Suddenly Athos came up to him.
“What about the purse?” he whispered.
“I was planning to give it to you, my dear Athos.”
“To me? Why, pray?”
“Because you killed him. The spoils of victory—”
“Can you imagine me stripping an enemy? What do you take me for?”
“You know the customs and fortunes of war,” D’Artagnan explained.“Do not those customs apply to dueling?”
“I never did that even on the battlefield!”
Porthos shrugged his shoulders; Aramis, pursing his lips, showed approval.
“Very well,” D’Artagnan agreed. “Let us give this money to the lackeys as Lord Winter suggested.”
“To the lackeys, ay,” cried Athos. “Not to ours, but to the Englishmen’s lackeys.”
Taking the purse from D’Artagnan, Athos tossed it to the English coachman.
“This is for you and your friends,” he said.
Such generosity in a man utterly destitute struck even Porthos. The story of it, repeated throughout Paris by Lord Winter, made a vast impression on every one save Messrs. Grimaud, Bazin, Mousqueton and Planchet.
Taking leave of him, Lord Winter gave D’Artagnan Milady’s address—6 Rue Royale, in the fashionable quarter of town—and offered to call for him. D’Artagnan suggested the Englishman