Luckily for the rascal, for I should have left him dead on the spot, I assure you."
"And what has became of him?"
"Oh, I don't know; he had enough, and set off without waiting for the rest. But you, my dear d'Artagnan, what has happened to you?"
"So that this strain of the knee," continued d'Artagnan, "my dear Porthos, keeps you in bed?"
"My God, that's all.
I shall be about again in a few days."
"Why did you not have yourself conveyed to Paris?
You must be cruelly bored here."
"That was my intention; but, my dear friend, I have one thing to confess to you."
"What's that?"
"It is that as I was cruelly bored, as you say, and as I had the seventy-five pistoles in my pocket which you had distributed to me, in order to amuse myself I invited a gentleman who was traveling this way to walk up, and proposed a cast of dice.
He accepted my challenge, and, my faith, my seventy-five pistoles passed from my pocket to his, without reckoning my horse, which he won into the bargain. But you, my dear d'Artagnan?"
"What can you expect, my dear Porthos; a man is not privileged in all ways," said d'Artagnan.
"You know the proverb
'Unlucky at play, lucky in love.'
You are too fortunate in your love for play not to take its revenge.
What consequence can the reverses of fortune be to you?
Have you not, happy rogue that you are—have you not your duchess, who cannot fail to come to your aid?"
"Well, you see, my dear d'Artagnan, with what ill luck I play," replied Porthos, with the most careless air in the world. "I wrote to her to send me fifty louis or so, of which I stood absolutely in need on account of my accident."
"Well?"
"Well, she must be at her country seat, for she has not answered me."
"Truly?"
"No; so I yesterday addressed another epistle to her, still more pressing than the first. But you are here, my dear fellow, let us speak of you.
I confess I began to be very uneasy on your account."
"But your host behaves very well toward you, as it appears, my dear Porthos," said d'Artagnan, directing the sick man's attention to the full stewpans and the empty bottles.
"So, so," replied Porthos.
"Only three or four days ago the impertinent jackanapes gave me his bill, and I was forced to turn both him and his bill out of the door; so that I am here something in the fashion of a conqueror, holding my position, as it were, my conquest. So you see, being in constant fear of being forced from that position, I am armed to the teeth."
"And yet," said d'Artagnan, laughing, "it appears to me that from time to time you must make SORTIES."
And he again pointed to the bottles and the stewpans.
"Not I, unfortunately!" said Porthos.
"This miserable strain confines me to my bed; but Mousqueton forages, and brings in provisions. Friend Mousqueton, you see that we have a reinforcement, and we must have an increase of supplies."
"Mousqueton," said d'Artagnan, "you must render me a service."
"What, monsieur?"
"You must give your recipe to Planchet.
I may be besieged in my turn, and I shall not be sorry for him to be able to let me enjoy the same advantages with which you gratify your master."
"Lord, monsieur! There is nothing more easy," said Mousqueton, with a modest air.
"One only needs to be sharp, that's all.
I was brought up in the country, and my father in his leisure time was something of a poacher."
"And what did he do the rest of his time?"
"Monsieur, he carried on a trade which I have always thought satisfactory."
"Which?"
"As it was a time of war between the Catholics and the Huguenots, and as he saw the Catholics exterminate the Huguenots and the Huguenots exterminate the Catholics—all in the name of religion—he adopted a mixed belief which permitted him to be sometimes Catholic, sometimes a Huguenot.
Now, he was accustomed to walk with his fowling piece on his shoulder, behind the hedges which border the roads, and when he saw a Catholic coming alone, the Protestant religion immediately prevailed in his mind.
He lowered his gun in the direction of the traveler; then, when he was within ten paces of him, he commenced a conversation which almost always ended by the traveler's abandoning his purse to save his life.
It goes without saying that when he saw a Huguenot coming, he felt himself filled with such ardent Catholic zeal that he could not understand how, a quarter of an hour before, he had been able to have any doubts upon the superiority of our holy religion.
For my part, monsieur, I am Catholic—my father, faithful to his principles, having made my elder brother a Huguenot."
"And what was the end of this worthy man?" asked d'Artagnan.
"Oh, of the most unfortunate kind, monsieur.
One day he was surprised in a lonely road between a Huguenot and a Catholic, with both of whom he had before had business, and who both knew him again; so they united against him and hanged him on a tree.
Then they came and boasted of their fine exploit in the cabaret of the next village, where my brother and I were drinking."