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“You see very well, then, that I must have that letter,” said d’Artagnan. “And so, no more delay, no more hesitation, or else, repugnant as it is to me to dip my sword a second time in the blood of a scoundrel like you, I swear on my faith as an honest man…”

And at these words d’Artagnan made such a threatening gesture that the wounded man stood up.

“Stop! Stop!” he cried, taking courage out of terror. “I’ll go…I’ll go!…”

D’Artagnan took the soldier’s arquebus, made him walk ahead of him, and pushed him towards his companion, prodding him in the back with the point of his sword.

It was a frightful thing to see the wretch, leaving a long trail of blood behind him as he went, pale in the face of death, trying to drag himself without being seen to the body of his accomplice, which lay twenty paces away!

Terror was so painted on his face, covered in cold sweat, that d’Artagnan took pity on him, and, looking at him with contempt, said:

“Well, then, I’ll show you the difference between a man of courage and a coward like you! Stay here, and I’ll go.”

And with an agile step, his eye on the lookout, observing the movements of the enemy, availing himself of all the accidents of the terrain, d’Artagnan reached the second soldier.

There were two ways of achieving his goal: to search him on the spot, or to carry him off, using his body as a shield, and search him in the trench.

D’Artagnan preferred the second method, and took the assassin on his back at the very moment when the enemy opened fire.

A slight shock, the dull noise of three bullets piercing flesh, a last cry, a shudder of agony, proved to d’Artagnan that the man who had wanted to assassinate him had just saved his life.

He began his inventory at once: a leather wallet, a purse evidently containing part of the sum the bandit had received, a dice cup, and dice made up the dead man’s inheritance.

He left the cup and the dice where they fell, threw the purse to the wounded man, and avidly opened the wallet.

Amidst various papers of no importance, he found the following letter. It was the one he had gone to find at the risk of his life:

Since you have lost track of that woman, and she is now safely in a convent which you should never have let her reach, try at least not to miss the man; otherwise, you know that I have a long arm, and that you will pay dearly for the hundred louis you got from me.

No signature. Nevertheless, it was evident that the letter was from Milady. He therefore kept it as convicting evidence, and, in safety behind the corner of the trench, began questioning the wounded man. The latter confessed that he had been directed, together with his comrade, the same one who had just been killed, to abduct a young woman who was to leave Paris by the porte de La Villette, but that, having stopped for a drink in a tavern, they had missed the carriage by ten minutes.

“But what would you have done with this woman?” d’Artagnan asked in anguish.

“We were to put her in a house on the place Royale,” said the wounded man.

“Yes, yes,” murmured d’Artagnan, “that’s it—in Milady’s own house!”

Then the young man understood with a shudder what a terrible thirst for vengeance drove this woman to destroy him, as well as those who loved him, and how much she knew about the affairs of court, since she had found out everything. No doubt she owed this information to the cardinal.

But, in the midst of all this, he understood, with a very real sense of joy, that the queen had ended by discovering the prison where poor Mme Bonacieux was paying for her devotion, and that she had taken her from that prison. And so the letter he had received from the young woman, and her passing by like an apparition on the road to Chaillot, were explained to him.

Hence, as Athos had predicted, it was possible to find Mme Bonacieux again, and a convent was not impregnable.

This idea finished restoring clemency to his heart. He turned to the wounded man, who was anxiously following all the changing expressions of his face, and holding out his arm to him, said:

“Come, I don’t want to abandon