The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [9]
“Turn about, turn about, Master Jester!” he challenged. “Must I strike you in the back?”
“You strike me?” The stranger surveyed the young man with astonishment and scorn. “Come, lad, you must be crazy!”
Then, in subdued tones, as though talking to himself:
“What a bore!” he sighed. “What a find this buck would be for His Majesty. The Royal Musketeers are combing the country to recruit just such hotheads.”
He had barely finished speaking when D’Artagnan lunged at him so impetuously that this jest might have been his last. The stranger drew his sword, saluted D’Artagnan and took up his guard. But suddenly at a sign his two onlookers, backed up by the innkeeper, fell upon D’Artagnan with sticks, shovels and tongs. While this sudden onslaught held D’Artagnan, the stranger sheathed his sword as readily as he had drawn it.
“A plague upon these Gascons!” he muttered. “Put him back on his orange nag and away with him!”
“Not before I kill you!”
“Another Gascon boast! Really, these Gascons are incorrigible! Keep up the dance since that is what he wants! When he is tired, we will cry quits.”
But the stranger did not suspect of what stubborn stuff his late adversary was made; D’Artagnan was never one to knuckle under. So the fight went on for a few seconds more, until D’Artagnan, exhausted, dropped his broken sword. Simultaneously, a cudgel struck him squarely on the forehead, bringing him to the ground, bloody and almost unconscious.
It was at this moment that the citizenry of Meung came flocking from all sides to the scene of action. The host, fearing a scandal, carried the wounded man into the kitchen where some trifling attentions were administered.
As for the stranger, he had resumed his stand at the window whence he stared somewhat impatiently upon the mob. Obviously put out by all this pother, he seemed to resent the fact that the crowd would not disperse.
“Well, how is this madman doing?” he inquired as the host poked his head through the door.
“Your Excellency is safe and sound, I trust?”
“Safe as a house and sound as a bell, my good host! But I am asking you what has happened to our young firebrand?”
“He is better now. He fainted quite away and before he fainted, he gathered all his strength to challenge and defy you!”
“Why, this fellow must be the devil in person!”
“Oh no, Your Excellency, he is no devil.” The host shrugged his shoulders disparagingly. “We searched him and rummaged through his kit. All we found was one clean shirt and twelve crowns in his purse, which didn’t stop him from cursing you roundly. He said that if this had happened in Paris instead of in Meung, you would have paid dearly for it.”
“A prince of the blood, no less, incognito and full of threats.”
“I have told Your Excellency all this so that you might be on your guard.”
“Did he name any names!”
“He slapped his pocket and said—”
“What?”
“He said: ‘We shall see what Monsieur de Tréville thinks of this insult.’”
“Monsieur de Tréville?” The stranger started. “He struck his pocket and mentioned Monsieur de Tréville? Come, come, my dear host, while your young man was unconscious, I’m sure you did not fail to look into this pocket. What did you find?”
“A letter addressed to Monsieur de Tréville, Captain of the Musketeers.”
“Indeed!”
“Exactly as I have the honor to tell Your Excellency.”
The innkeeper, who was not gifted with great perspicacity, failed to observe the other’s expression as he received this news. The stranger moved away from the window, and frowning:
“The devil!” he muttered. “Can Tréville have set this Gascon on my trail? He is very young. Still, a sword thrust is a sword thrust, whatever the fencer’s age. Besides, a youth arouses less suspicion than an older man.”
Then he fell into a deep silence. After several minutes:
“Come, come, my good host, do please rid me of this crazy lad. I can’t kill him and yet—” his expression was cold and threatening, “yet he is a great nuisance! Where is the fellow?”
“Upstairs in my wife’s room. They are