“Well, good enough!” said the young man, laughing; “she thinks I am worth something. A hundred louis! Well, that was a temptation for two miserable creatures like you. So I understand you accepted it, and I grant you my pardon, but on one condition.”
“What is that?” said the soldier, uneasy at perceiving that all was not over.
“That you go and fetch me the letter your comrade has in his pocket.”
“Why,” cried the bandit, “that is only another way of killing me. How can you wish me to go and fetch that letter under the fire from the bastion?”
Terror was so strongly painted on his face, covered with a cold sweat, that D’Artagnan took pity on him, and casting on him a look of contempt,“Well,” said he, “I will show you the difference between a man of true courage and a coward, as you are. Stay, I will go.”
And with a light step, an eye on the watch, observing the movements of the enemy and taking advantage of all the aid afforded by the nature of the ground, D’Artagnan succeeded in reaching the second soldier.
There were two means of attaining his object—to search him on the spot, or to carry him away, making a buckler of his body, and then search him in the trench.
D’Artagnan preferred the second means, and lifted the assassin on his shoulders at the very moment the enemy fired.
A slight shock, the dull thud of three balls penetrating the flesh, a last cry, a convulsion of agony, proved to D’Artagnan that the man who had just tried to assassinate him had saved his life.
D’Artagnan regained the trench, and threw the body down by the wounded man, who was as pale as death.
He instantly began the search. Among some unimportant papers he found the following letter, the one which he had gone to get at the risk of his life:
“Since you have lost track of that woman, and she is now in safety in the convent, which you should never have allowed her to reach, try, at least, not to miss the man. If you do, you know that my hand reaches far, and that you shall repay me very dearly the hundred louis you have had of me.”
No signature. Nevertheless it was plain the letter came from milady. He consequently kept it as a piece of evidence, and as he was in safety behind the angle of the trench, he began to question the wounded man. He confessed that he had undertaken, with his comrade, the man just killed, to abduct a young woman about to leave Paris by the gate of La Villette; but having stopped to drink at a saloon, they had missed the carriage by ten minutes.
“But what were you to have done with the woman?” asked D’Artagnan, in great agitation.
“We were to have conveyed her to a h?tel in the Place Royale,” said the wounded man.
“Yes, yes,” murmured D’Artagnan; “that’s the place—milady’s own residence.”
Then the young man, shuddering, felt what a terrible thirst of vengeance impelled this woman to destroy him, as well as those who loved him, and how well acquainted she must be with affairs of the court, since she had discovered everything. Doubtless she owed this information to the cardinal.
But he also perceived, with a feeling of genuine joy, that the queen must have at last discovered the prison in which poor Madame Bonacieux was expiating her devotion, and that she had freed her from that prison. And the letter he had received from the young woman, and her passing along the Chaillot road like an apparition, were now explained.
He turned to the wounded man, who had watched with intense anxiety all the varying expressions of his countenance, and holding out his arm to him,“Come,” said he; “I will not abandon you thus. Lean upon me, and let us return to camp.”
The guardsman who had returned at the first discharge had announced the death of his four companions. There was therefore much astonishment and delight in the regiment when the young man was seen to come back safe and sound.
D’Artagnan explained the sword-wound of his companion by a sortie which he improvised. He told of the other soldier’s death and the perils they had encountered. This recital was for him the occasion of a veritable triumph. The whole army talked of this expedition for a day, and Monsieur sent him his compliments on it.
