"Ah, fie!" D'Artagnan replied. "Bigamy, my dear! Come now, you don't really wish it?" "But he is dead; I am sure of it."
"He was a very contrary fellow and might come back on purpose to have us hanged."
"All right; if he comes back you will kill him, you are so skillful and so brave."
"Peste! my darling! another way of getting hanged." "So you refuse my request?"
"To be sure I do--furiously!"
The pretty landlady was desolate. She would have taken D'Artagnan not only as her husband, but as her God, he was so handsome
and had so fierce a mustache.
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Then along toward the fourth year came the expedition of Franche-Comte. D'Artagnan was assigned to it and made his preparations to depart. There were then great griefs, tears without end and solemn promises to remain faithful--all of course on the part of the hostess. D'Artagnan was too grand to promise anything; he purposed only to do all that he could to increase the glory of his name.
As to that, we know D'Artagnan's courage; he exposed himself freely to danger and while charging at the head of his company he received a ball through the chest which laid him prostrate on the field of battle. He had been seen falling from his horse and had
not been seen to rise; every one, therefore, believed him to be dead, especially those to whom his death would give promotion. One believes readily what he wishes to believe. Now in the army, from the division-generals who desire the death of the general-in-chief, to the soldiers who desire the death of the corporals, all desire some one's death.
But D'Artagnan was not a man to let himself be killed like that. After he had remained through the heat of the day unconscious on the battle-field, the cool freshness of the night brought him to himself. He gained a village, knocked at the door of the finest house and was received as the wounded are always and everywhere received in France. He was petted, tended, cured; and one fine morning, in better health than ever before, he set out for France. Once in France he turned his course toward Paris, and reaching Paris went straight to Rue Tiquetonne.
But D'Artagnan found in his chamber the personal equipment of a man, complete, except for the sword, arranged along the wall. "He has returned," said he. "So much the worse, and so much the better!"
It need not be said that D'Artagnan was still thinking of the husband. He made inquiries and discovered that the servants were new and that the mistress had gone for a walk.
"Alone?" asked D'Artagnan. "With monsieur."
"Monsieur has returned, then?"
"Of course," naively replied the servant.
"If I had any money," said D'Artagnan to himself, "I would go away; but I have none. I must stay and follow the advice of my hostess, while thwarting the conjugal designs of this inopportune apparition."
He had just completed this monologue--which proves that in momentous circumstances nothing is more natural than the monologue--when the servant-maid, watching at the door, suddenly cried out:
"Ah! see! here is madame returning with monsieur."
D'Artagnan looked out and at the corner of Rue Montmartre saw the hostess coming along hanging to the arm of an enormous
Swiss, who tiptoed in his walk with a magnificent air which pleasantly reminded him of his old friend Porthos.
"Is that monsieur?" said D'Artagnan to himself. "Oh! oh! he has grown a good deal, it seems to me." And he sat down in the hall, choosing a conspicuous place.
The hostess, as she entered, saw D'Artagnan and uttered a little cry, whereupon D'Artagnan, judging that he had been recognized, rose, ran to her and embraced her tenderly. The Swiss, with an air of stupefaction, looked at the hostess, who turned pale.
"Ah, it is you, monsieur! What do you want of me?" she asked, in great distress.
"Is monsieur your cousin? Is monsieur your brother?" said D'Artagnan, not in the slightest degree embarrassed in the role he was playing. And without waiting for her reply he threw himself into the arms of the Helvetian, who received him with great coldness.
"Who is that man?" he asked.
The hostess replied only by gasps.
"Who is that Swiss?" asked D'Artagnan.
34
"Monsieur is going to marry me," replied the hostess, between two gasps. "Your husband, then, is at last dead?"
"How does that concern you?" replied the Swiss.
"It concerns me much," said D'Artagnan, "since you cannot marry madame without my consent and since----" "And since?" asked the Swiss.
"And since--I do not give it," said the musketeer.
The Swiss became as purple as a peony. He wore his elegant uniform, D'Artagnan was wrapped in a sort of gray cloak; the Swiss was six feet high, D'Artagnan was hardly more than five; the Swiss considered himself on his own ground and regarded D'Artagnan as
an intruder.
"Will you go away from here?" demanded the Swiss, stamping violently, like a man who begins to be seriously angry. "I? By no means!" said D'Artagnan.
"Some one must go for help," said a lad, who could not comprehend that this little man should make a stand against that other man, who was so large.
D'Artagnan, with a sudden accession of wrath, seized the lad by the ear and led him apart, with the injunction:
"Stay you where you are and don't you stir, or I will pull this ear off. As for you, illustrious descendant of William Tell, you will straightway get together your clothes which are in my room and which annoy me, and go out quickly to another lodging."
The Swiss began to laugh boisterously. "I go out?" he said. "And why?"
"Ah, very well!" said D'Artagnan; "I see that you understand French. Come then, and take a turn with me and I will explain."
The hostess, who knew D'Artagnan's skill with the sword, began to weep and tear her hair. D'Artagnan turned toward her, saying, "Then send him away, madame."
"Pooh!" said the Swiss, who had needed a little time to take in D'Artagnan's proposal, "pooh! who are you, in the first place, to ask
me to take a turn with you?"
"I am lieutenant in his majesty's musketeers," said D'Artagnan, "and consequently your superior in everything; only, as the question now is not of rank, but of quarters--you know the custom--come and seek for yours; the first to return will recover his chamber."
D'Artagnan led away the Swiss in spite of lamentations on the part of the hostess, who in reality found her heart inclining toward her former lover, though she would not have been sorry to give a lesson to that haughty musketeer who had affronted her by the refusal of her hand.
It was night when the two adversaries reached the field of battle. D'Artagnan politely begged the Swiss to yield to him the disputed chamber; the Swiss refused by shaking his head, and drew his sword.
"Then you will lie here," said D'Artagnan. "It is a wretched bed, but that is not my fault, and it is you who have chosen it." With these words he drew in his turn and crossed swords with his adversary.
He had to contend against a strong wrist, but his agility was superior to all force. The Swiss received two wounds and was not aware
of it, by reason of the cold; but suddenly