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D'Artagnan repressed his inclination to laugh, because the brevity of Aramis's letter gave rise to reflection. He followed Mousqueton, or rather Mousqueton's chariot, to the castle. He sat down to a sumptuous table, of which they did him the honors as to a king. But he could draw nothing from Mousqueton, the faithful servant seemed to shed tears at will, but that was all.
On the morrow he received the last touches of Mousqueton's brush for an hour, and took his way toward the Rue aux Ours with the steps of a man who was doubly in favor with fortune. His heart beat, but not like d'Artagnan's with a young and impatient love. No; a more material interest stirred his blood.
"Don't waste a charge! Forward!" Aramis, wounded as he was, seized the mane of his horse, which carried him on with the others. Mousqueton's horse rejoined them, and galloped by the side of his companions. "That will serve us for a relay," said Athos. "I would rather have had a hat," said d'Artagnan. "Mine was carried away by a ball.
The prisoners, therefore, had remained silent as they marched along in company with their conquerors which they could do with the less difficulty since each of them had occupation enough in answering his own thoughts. It would be impossible to describe Mousqueton's astonishment when from the threshold of the door he saw the four friends approaching, followed by a sergeant with a dozen men.
"Let us rather kill them! yes, kill them!" cried D'Artagnan; "I see fresh tracks; 'tis not a quarter of an hour since they passed this place." In fact, the road was trodden by horses' feet, visible even in the approaching gloom of evening. They set out; after a run of two leagues, Mousqueton's horse sank. "Gracious me!" said Porthos, "there's Phoebus ruined."
"And I," said Porthos, "do you think my strain cost me nothing? without reckoning Mousqueton's wound, for which I had to have the surgeon twice a day, and who charged me double on account of that foolish Mousqueton having allowed himself a ball in a part which people generally only show to an apothecary; so I advised him to try never to get wounded there any more."
Mousqueton's horse which had traveled for five or six hours without a rider the day before, might have been able to pursue the journey; but by an inconceivable error the veterinary surgeon, who had been sent for, as it appeared, to bleed one of the host's horses, had bled Mousqueton's. This began to be annoying.
D'Artagnan repressed his inclination to laugh, because the brevity of Aramis's letter gave rise to reflection. He followed Mousqueton, or rather Mousqueton's chariot, to the castle. He sat down to a sumptuous table, of which they did him the honors as to a king. But he could draw nothing from Mousqueton, the faithful servant seemed to shed tears at will, but that was all.
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