The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (adult books to read .txt) 📕

host, with a grin of contempt; “for during his fainting we rummaged his valise and found nothing but a clean shirt and eleven crowns—which however, did not prevent his saying, as he was fainting, that if such a thing had happened in Paris, you should have cause to repent of it at a later period.”

“Then,” said the stranger coolly, “he must be some prince in disguise.”

“I have told you this, good sir,” resumed the host, “in order that you may be on your guard.”

“Did he name no one in his passion?”

“Yes; he struck his pocket and said, ‘We shall see what Monsieur de Tréville will think of this insult offered to his protégé.’”

“Monsieur de Tréville?” said the stranger, becoming attentive, “he put his hand upon his pocket while pronouncing the name of Monsieur de Tréville? Now, my dear host, while your young man was insensible, you did not fail, I am quite sure, to ascertain what that pocket contained. What was there in it?”

“A letter addressed to Monsieur de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers.”

“Indeed!”

“Exactly as I have the honor to tell your Excellency.”

The host, who was not endowed with great perspicacity, did not observe the expression which his words had given to the physiognomy of the stranger. The latter rose from the front of the window, upon the sill of which he had leaned with his elbow, and knitted his brow like a man disquieted.

“The devil!” murmured he, between his teeth. “Can Tréville have set this Gascon upon me? He is very young; but a sword thrust is a sword thrust, whatever be the age of him who gives it, and a youth is less to be suspected than an older man,” and the stranger fell into a reverie which lasted some minutes. “A weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to overthrow a great design.

“Host,” said he, “could you not contrive to get rid of this frantic boy for me? In conscience, I cannot kill him; and yet,” added he, with a coldly menacing expression, “he annoys me. Where is he?”

“In my wife’s chamber, on the first flight, where they are dressing his wounds.”

“His things and his bag are with him? Has he taken off his doublet?”

“On the contrary, everything is in the kitchen. But if he annoys you, this young fool—”

“To be sure he does. He causes a disturbance in your hostelry, which respectable people cannot put up with. Go; make out my bill and notify my servant.”

“What, monsieur, will you leave us so soon?”

“You know that very well, as I gave my order to saddle my horse. Have they not obeyed me?”

“It is done; as your Excellency may have observed, your horse is in the great gateway, ready saddled for your departure.”

“That is well; do as I have directed you, then.”

“What the devil!” said the host to himself. “Can he be afraid of this boy?” But an imperious glance from the stranger stopped him short; he bowed humbly and retired.

“It is not necessary for Milady* to be seen by this fellow,” continued the stranger. “She will soon pass; she is already late. I had better get on horseback, and go and meet her. I should like, however, to know what this letter addressed to Tréville contains.” And the stranger, muttering to himself, directed his steps toward the kitchen.

* We are well aware that this term, milady, is only properly used when followed by a family name. But we find it thus in the manuscript, and we do not choose to take upon ourselves to alter it.

In the meantime, the host, who entertained no doubt that it was the presence of the young man that drove the stranger from his hostelry, re-ascended to his wife’s chamber, and found d’Artagnan just recovering his senses. Giving him to understand that the police would deal with him pretty severely for having sought a quarrel with a great lord—for in the opinion of the host the stranger could be nothing less than a great lord—he insisted that notwithstanding his weakness d’Artagnan should get up and depart as quickly as possible. D’Artagnan, half stupefied, without his doublet, and with his head bound up in a linen cloth, arose then, and urged by the host, began to descend the stairs; but on arriving at the kitchen, the first thing he saw was his antagonist talking calmly at the step of a heavy carriage, drawn by two large Norman horses.

His interlocutor, whose head appeared through the carriage window, was a woman of from twenty to two-and-twenty years. We have already observed with what rapidity d’Artagnan seized the expression of a countenance. He perceived then, at a glance, that this woman was young and beautiful; and her style of beauty struck him more forcibly from its being totally different from that of the southern countries in which d’Artagnan had hitherto resided. She was pale and fair, with long curls falling in profusion over her shoulders, had large, blue, languishing eyes, rosy lips, and hands of alabaster. She was talking with great animation with the stranger.

“His Eminence, then, orders me—” said the lady.

“To return instantly to England, and to inform him as soon as the duke leaves London.”

“And as to my other instructions?” asked the fair traveler.

“They are contained in this box, which you will not open until you are on the other side of the Channel.”

“Very well; and you—what will you do?”

“I—I return to Paris.”

“What, without chastising this insolent boy?” asked the lady.

The stranger was about to reply; but at the moment he opened his mouth, d’Artagnan, who had heard all, precipitated himself over the threshold of the door.

“This insolent boy chastises others,” cried he; “and I hope that this time he whom he ought to chastise will not escape him as before.”

“Will not escape him?” replied the stranger, knitting his brow.

“No; before a woman you would dare not fly, I presume?”

“Remember,” said Milady, seeing the stranger lay his hand on his sword, “the least delay may ruin everything.”

“You are right,” cried the gentleman; “begone then, on your part, and I will depart as quickly on mine.” And bowing to the lady, he sprang into his saddle, while her coachman applied his whip vigorously to his horses. The two interlocutors thus separated, taking opposite directions, at full gallop.

“Pay him, booby!” cried the stranger to his servant, without checking the speed of his horse; and the man, after throwing two or three silver pieces at the foot of mine host, galloped after his master.

“Base coward! false gentleman!” cried d’Artagnan, springing forward, in his turn, after the servant. But his wound had rendered him too weak to support such an exertion. Scarcely had he gone ten steps when his ears began to tingle, a faintness seized him, a cloud of blood passed over his eyes, and he fell in the middle of the street, crying still, “Coward! coward! coward!”

“He is a coward, indeed,” grumbled the host, drawing near to d’Artagnan, and endeavoring by this little flattery to make up matters with the young man, as the heron of the fable did with the snail he had despised the evening before.

“Yes, a base coward,” murmured d’Artagnan; “but she—she was very beautiful.”

“What she?” demanded the host.

“Milady,” faltered d’Artagnan, and fainted a second time.

“Ah, it’s all one,” said the host; “I have lost two customers, but this one remains, of whom I am pretty certain for some days to come. There will be eleven crowns gained.”

It is to be remembered that eleven crowns was just the sum that remained in d’Artagnan’s purse.

The host had reckoned upon eleven days of confinement at a crown a day, but he had reckoned without his guest. On the following morning at five o’clock d’Artagnan arose, and descending to the kitchen without help, asked, among other ingredients the list of which has not come down to us, for some oil, some wine, and some rosemary, and with his mother’s recipe in his hand composed a balsam, with which he anointed his numerous wounds, replacing his bandages himself, and positively refusing the assistance of any doctor, d’Artagnan walked about that same evening, and was almost cured by the morrow.

But when the time came to pay for his rosemary, this oil, and the wine, the only expense the master had incurred, as he had preserved a strict abstinence—while on the contrary, the yellow horse, by the account of the hostler at least, had eaten three times as much as a horse of his size could reasonably be supposed to have done—d’Artagnan found nothing in his pocket but his little old velvet purse with the eleven crowns it contained; for as to the letter addressed to M. de Tréville, it had disappeared.

The young man commenced his search for the letter with the greatest patience, turning out his pockets of all kinds over and over again, rummaging and rerummaging in his valise, and opening and reopening his purse; but when he found that he had come to the conviction that the letter was not to be found, he flew, for the third time, into such a rage as was near costing him a fresh consumption of wine, oil, and rosemary—for upon seeing this hot-headed youth become exasperated and threaten to destroy everything in the establishment if his letter were not found, the host seized a spit, his wife a broom handle, and the servants the same sticks they had used the day before.

“My letter of recommendation!” cried d’Artagnan, “my letter of recommendation! or, the holy blood, I will spit you all like ortolans!”

Unfortunately, there was one circumstance which created a powerful obstacle to the accomplishment of this threat; which was, as we have related, that his sword had been in his first conflict broken in two, and which he had entirely forgotten. Hence, it resulted when d’Artagnan proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and simply armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in length, which the host had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the rest of the blade, the master had slyly put that on one side to make himself a larding pin.

But this deception would probably not have stopped our fiery young man if the host had not reflected that the reclamation which his guest made was perfectly just.

“But, after all,” said he, lowering the point of his spit, “where is this letter?”

“Yes, where is this letter?” cried d’Artagnan. “In the first place, I warn you that that letter is for Monsieur de Tréville, and it must be found, or if it is not found, he will know how to find it.”

His threat completed the intimidation of the host. After the king and the cardinal, M. de Tréville was the man whose name was perhaps most frequently repeated by the military, and even by citizens. There was, to be sure, Father Joseph, but his name was never pronounced but with a subdued voice, such was the terror inspired by his Gray Eminence, as the cardinal’s familiar was called.

Throwing down his spit, and ordering his wife to do the same with her broom handle, and the servants with their sticks, he set the first example of commencing an earnest search for the lost letter.

“Does the letter contain anything valuable?” demanded the host, after a few minutes of useless investigation.

“Zounds! I think it does indeed!” cried the Gascon, who reckoned upon this letter for making his way at court. “It contained my fortune!”

“Bills upon Spain?” asked the disturbed host.

“Bills upon his Majesty’s private treasury,” answered d’Artagnan, who, reckoning upon entering into the king’s service in consequence of this recommendation, believed he could make this somewhat hazardous reply without telling of a falsehood.

“The devil!” cried the host, at his wits’ end.

“But it’s of no importance,” continued d’Artagnan, with natural assurance; “it’s of no importance. The money is nothing; that letter was everything. I would rather have lost a thousand pistoles than have lost it.” He would not have risked more if he had said twenty thousand; but a certain juvenile modesty restrained him.

A ray of light all at once broke upon the mind of the host as he was giving himself to the devil upon finding nothing.

“That letter is not lost!” cried he.

“What!” cried d’Artagnan.

“No, it has been stolen from you.”

“Stolen? By whom?”

“By the gentleman who was here yesterday. He came down into the kitchen, where your doublet was. He remained there some time alone. I would lay a wager he has stolen it.”

“Do you think so?” answered d’Artagnan, but little convinced, as he knew better than anyone else how entirely personal the value of this letter was, and saw nothing in it likely to tempt cupidity. The fact was that none of his servants, none of the travelers present, could have gained anything by being possessed of this paper.

“Do