The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [13]
“A plague on these Gascons! Put him back on his orange horse and send him on his way!”
“Not before I’ve killed you, coward!” cried d’Artagnan, still holding up the best he could and not yielding one step to his three enemies, who were flailing away at him.
“Another gasconade,” murmured the gentleman. “On my honor, these Gascons are incorrigible! Keep up the dance, then, since he absolutely insists on it. When he gets tired, he’ll say he’s had enough.”
But the unknown man did not know yet what kind of entity he was dealing with: d’Artagnan was not a man ever to cry mercy. The combat thus went on for several seconds more; finally d’Artagnan, exhausted, dropped his sword, which the blow of a stick broke in two. Another blow, which opened up his forehead, brought him down at almost the same time, all bloody and nearly unconscious.
It was at that moment that people came running from all sides to the scene of the event. Fearing a scandal, the host, with the help of his waiters, carried the wounded man to the kitchen, where he was looked after a little.
As for the gentleman, he had gone back to take his place at the window and looked with a certain impatience at the whole mob, which seemed to cause him sharp vexation by staying there.
“Well, how’s that wild man doing?” he asked, turning around at the sound of the opening door and addressing the host, who came to inquire after his health.
“Your Excellency is safe and sound?” asked the host.
“Yes, perfectly safe and sound, my dear innkeeper, and it’s I who am asking you what’s become of our young man.”
“He’s better,” said the host. “He passed out completely.”
“Really?” said the gentleman.
“But before passing out, he gathered all his strength to call you out and challenge you.”
“Why, then this strapping lad is the devil in person!” cried the unknown man.
“Oh, no, Your Excellency, he’s not the devil,” the host picked up, wincing with scorn, “for we searched him while he was passed out, and he has nothing in his pack but a shirt and nothing in his purse but twelve écus, which didn’t keep him from saying as he passed out that if such a thing had happened in Paris, you would have repented of it at once, while here you’ll repent of it later.”
“So,” the unknown man said coldly, “he’s some prince of the blood in disguise.”
“I’m telling you this, sir,” the host went on, “so that you’ll keep on your guard.”
“And he didn’t name anyone in his anger?”
“Yes, he did. He slapped his pocket and said: ‘We’ll see what M. de Tréville will think of this insult to his protégé.’”
“M. de Tréville?” said the unknown man, turning all attention. “He slapped his pocket while pronouncing the name of M. de Tréville?…Look here, my good host, while your young man was passed out, I’m sure you didn’t do without looking in that pocket as well. What was in it?”
“A letter addressed to M. de Tréville, captain of the musketeers.”
“Indeed!”
“It is as I have the honor of telling you, Your Excellency.”
The host, who was not endowed with great perspicacity, never noticed the expression his words had given to the unknown man’s physiognomy. The latter left the sill of the casement on which he had been leaning, propped on his elbow, and knitted a worried man’s brows.
“Devil take it!” he murmured between his teeth. “Could Tréville have sent me this Gascon? He’s quite young! But a sword stroke is a sword stroke, whatever the age of the one who gives it, and one is less wary of a boy than of anyone else; a weak obstacle is sometimes enough to thwart a grand design.”
And the unknown man fell to thinking for several minutes.
“Look here, host,” he said, “won’t you rid me of this frenetic? In all conscience, I can’t kill him, and yet,” he added with a coldly menacing expression, “and yet he’s a nuisance to me. Where is he?”
“In my wife’s bedroom, being bandaged, on the first floor.”
“His rags and sack are with him? He didn’t take off his doublet?”
“All that, on the contrary, is down in the kitchen. But since he’s a nuisance to you, this young fool…”
“To be sure. He’s causing