The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [211]
“We are minus two,” he told his fellow-guardsmen. “I suppose they funked it. No matter, gentlemen, let us proceed!”
As they rounded the counterscarp, they were within twenty yards of the bastion. There was no one in sight; the bastion appeared to be deserted.
“A sleeveless errand!” said Guardsman Number One.
“A forlorn hope!” said Guardsman Number Two.
Then, as they were deliberating whether to advance or retreat, suddenly a circle of smoke emerged from the bastion and a dozen bullets whizzed past D’Artagnan and his two comrades.
“We know what’s what, eh?” D’Artagnan commented. “That bastion is substantially garrisoned. To stay here any longer is useless. Let us go back!”
And they beat a hasty retreat that might well be termed a flight.
As they reached the corner of the trench which was to serve them as a rampart, one of the guardsmen fell, shot through the chest. The other, unhurt, scampered back to camp. D’Artagnan, unwilling to abandon his wounded comrade, bent over him and sought to raise him to his feet. As he did so, two shots whistled past him, one shattering the head of the wounded guardsman, the other flattening itself against the rock within two inches of D’Artagnan.
The Gascon whirled round. Those shots, he knew, could not have come from the bastion, for the parapet protected him on that side. Was it the two soldiers who had abandoned him? Two soldiers—and two assassins with barrels gleaming through the hedge, right and left, in the last rays of the sun, two days ago? This time D’Artagnan resolved to face the issue and discover whom he was dealing with. He fell over his comrade’s corpse as though he too had been shot. Presently he saw two heads rise above an abandoned earthwork some thirty feet away. Obviously they belonged to the two privates who had hung back, then followed him only to try to kill him, trusting that his death might be ascribed to an enemy bullet.
For their part, thinking D’Artagnan might have been only wounded and could therefore return to camp and denounce them, they advanced to make sure and, if necessary, to dispatch him. Fortunately for D’Artagnan, when they saw him topple over, they neglected to reload their guns. When they were within ten paces, he sprang forward, sword in hand. The ruffians understood that they must either dispatch their man and return to camp or go over to the enemy. One of them seized his gun by the barrel and, wielding it as a club, aimed a smart blow at D’Artagnan. D’Artagnan dodged it by leaping aside, but in doing so, left the way clear for the other bandit to make for the bastion. The men of La Rochelle, knowing nothing of the rascal’s intentions, opened fire upon him and he fell, his shoulder broken.
Meanwhile D’Artagnan, sword in hand, soon mastered the second soldier, who had only his unloaded harquebus for weapon. D’Artagnan’s blade grazed the barrel of the useless firearm and pierced the ruffian’s thigh; D’Artagnan then pressed the point of his sword against his throat.
“Spare me, spare me, I beg you!” the ruffian cried. “I promise to tell you all.”
“Is your secret worth your life?”
“Ay, Monsieur, if life means anything to as pretty a gentleman as yourself at twenty years of age and handsome and brave into the bargain.”
“Speak quickly, swine! Who employed you to murder me?”
“A woman, Monsieur . . . I don’t know who . . . they call her Milady. . . .”
“If you don’t know her, how do you know her name?”
“My comrade knew her . . . he called her Milady . . . she made the bargain with him not with me . . . he even has a letter from her in his pocket . . . a letter you would give your eye-teeth to read, so he says. . . .”
“How did you let yourself in for this dirty job?”
“My friend made me an offer and I accepted.”
“On what terms?”
“A