• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Athos!”

“Athos!” Monsieur de Tréville echoed in amazement.

“My comrades told me you had sent for me, Captain,” the newcomer said in a feeble yet perfectly even voice, “so I came here to report to you. What is your pleasure, Monsieur?”

He was in regulation uniform, buttons ashine, boots glittering, belted as usual for duty, every inch a soldier. With a tolerably firm step, he advanced into the room. Monsieur de Tréville, deeply moved by this proof of courage, sprang to meet him.

“I was telling these gentlemen that I forbid my musketeers to expose their lives needlessly,” he explained. “Brave men are very dear to the King and His Majesty knows that his musketeers are the bravest men on earth. Your hand, Athos!”

And without waiting for the other’s reaction, Monsieur de Tréville seized his right hand and pressed it with all his might. In his enthusiasm he failed to notice that Athos, mastering himself as he did, could not check a twitch of pain. Athos turned even whiter than before.

The arrival of Athos had created a sensation in the Hôtel de Tréville. Despite the precautions his comrades had taken to keep his wounds a secret, news of his condition was common gossip. The door to Monsieur de Tréville’s had remained open; his last words met with a burst of satisfaction in the antechamber. Jubilant, two or three musketeers poked their heads through the openings of the tapestry. Monsieur de Tréville was about to reprimand this breach of discipline when he felt the hand of Athos stiffen and, looking up, realized that Athos was about to faint. At that moment, Athos rallied all his energy to struggle against pain, but he was at length overcome and fell to the floor like a dead man.

“A surgeon!” Monsieur de Tréville ordered. “My surgeon or the King’s. Anyhow, the best surgeon you can find. God’s blood, unless you fetch a surgeon, my brave Athos will die.”

At this, many of the musketeers outside rushed into Monsieur de Tréville’s office (for he was too occupied with Athos to close the door upon them) and crowded around the wounded man. All this attention might have proved useless had not the physician so urgently summoned chanced to be in the mansion. Elbowing his way through the throng, he approached Athos. The musketeer was still unconscious, and, as all this noise and commotion was inconvenient, the first and most urgent thing the doctor asked was that Athos be removed to an adjoining room. Monsieur de Tréville immediately opened the door and pointed the way to Porthos and Aramis who carried off their comrade in their arms. Behind them walked the surgeon, and behind the surgeon, the door closed. Then, momentarily, Monsieur de Tréville’s office, usually a place held sacred, became an annex to the antechamber as everybody commented, harangued, vociferated, swore, cursed and consigned the Cardinal and his guardsmen to all the devils.

An instant after, Porthos and Aramis reappeared, leaving only the surgeon and Monsieur de Tréville at their friend’s side. Presently Monsieur de Tréville himself returned. Athos, he said, had regained consciousness and, according to the surgeon, his condition need not worry his friends; his weakness was due wholly to loss of blood.

Then the Captain of Musketeers dismissed the company with a wave of the hand and all withdrew save D’Artagnan, who did not forget that he had an audience and who, with Gascon tenacity, sat tight.

“Pardon me, my dear compatriot,” Monsieur de Tréville said with a smile, “pardon me but I had completely forgotten you. You can understand that. A captain is nothing but a father charged with an even greater responsibility than the father of an ordinary family. Soldiers are just big children. But as I insist on the orders of the King, and more particularly the orders of the Cardinal, being carried out—”

D’Artagnan could not help smiling. Observing this Monsieur de Tréville judged that he was not dealing with a fool, and, changing the conversation, came straight to