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The innkeeper had the look of the most honest man on earth. He received the travelers with his candlestick in one hand and his cotton nightcap in the other; he wanted to lodge each of the travelers in a charming room, but unfortunately these charming rooms were at two ends of the inn. D’Artagnan and Athos refused. The host replied that there were no other rooms worthy of Their Excellencies; but the travelers declared that they would sleep in the common room, each on a mattress thrown on the floor. The host insisted; the travelers stood their ground; he had to do as they wished.

They had just made their beds and barricaded the door from inside when someone knocked at the courtyard shutter. They asked who was there, recognized the voices of their valets, and opened the shutter.

Indeed, it was Planchet and Grimaud.

“Grimaud can guard the horses by himself,” said Planchet. “If the gentlemen wish, I will sleep across their doorsill; in that way, they’ll be sure that no one will be able to get to them.”

“And what will you sleep on?” asked d’Artagnan.

“Here’s my bed,” replied Planchet.

And he pointed to a bundle of straw.

“Come on, then,” said d’Artagnan. “You’re right: the host’s face doesn’t convince me; it’s too ingratiating.”

“I agree,” said Athos.

Planchet climbed through the window and installed himself on the doorsill, while Grimaud went to lock himself in the stables, guaranteeing that at five o’clock in the morning, he and the four horses would be ready.

The night was rather quiet. Someone did try to open the door at two in the morning, but as Planchet awoke with a start and shouted: “Who goes there?” the person answered that he was mistaken and went away.

At four in the morning, they heard a great noise in the stables. Grimaud had wanted to wake up the stable boys, and the stable boys had given him a beating. When they opened the window, they saw the poor boy lying unconscious, his head split by the handle of a pitchfork.

Planchet went down to the courtyard, intending to saddle the horses, but the horses were foundered. Only Mousqueton’s, which had traveled for five or six hours without its master the day before, might have continued the journey; but, by an inconceivable error, the veterinary surgeon who had been sent for, as it seemed, to bleed the host’s horse, had bled Mousqueton’s instead.

This was beginning to be disturbing: all these successive accidents were perhaps the result of chance, but they might also very well be the fruits of a plot. Athos and d’Artagnan came out, while Planchet went to see if there were three horses for sale in the neighborhood. At the gate stood two fully equipped horses, fresh and vigorous. They were just what he was after. He asked where the masters were; he was told that the masters had spent the night at the inn and were at that moment settling accounts with the host.

Athos went down to pay the bill, while d’Artagnan and Planchet waited at the street door. The innkeeper was in a lowceilinged back room; Athos was asked to go there.

Athos went in unsuspectingly and took out two pistoles in order to pay. The host was alone and sitting at his desk, one of the drawers of which was half open. He took the money Athos handed him, turned it over and over in his hands, and all at once, crying out that the coin was false, declared that he would have them arrested, him and his companion, as counterfeiters.

“Knave!” said Athos, advancing towards him. “I’ll cut your ears off!”

At that same instant, four men armed to the teeth came in by side doors and threw themselves upon Athos.

“It’s a trap!” cried Athos at the top of his lungs. “Get away, d’Artagnan! quick! quick!” And he fired off two pistol shots.

D’Artagnan and Planchet did not need to hear it twice. They unhitched the two horses that were waiting by the gate, leaped onto them, sank their spurs into their flanks, and set off at a triple gallop.

“Do you know what became of Athos?” d’Artagnan asked Planchet on the run.

“Ah, Monsieur!” said Planchet, “I saw two of them fall at his