the Frenchman. "Let your men be sent away; I will
come out freely and repair to the camp alone, or else I will be killed
here!"

"Mille tonnerres!" shouted D'Artagnan; "why that's the voice of Athos!
Ah, canailles!" and the sword of D'Artagnan flashed from its sheath.
Monk stopped him and advanced himself, exclaiming, in a sonorous voice:
"Hola! what is going on here? Digby, whence this fire? why these cries?"

"The general!" cried Digby, letting the point of his sword fall.

"The general!" repeated the soldiers.

"Well, what is there so astonishing in that?" said Monk, in a calm tone.
Then, silence being re-established--"Now," said he, "who lit this fire?"

The soldiers hung their heads.

"What! do I ask a question, and nobody answers me?" said Monk. "What!
do I find a fault, and nobody repairs it? The fire is still burning, I
believe."

Immediately the twenty men rushed forward, seizing pails, buckets, jars,
barrels, and extinguishing the fire with as much ardor as they had, an
instant before employed in promoting it. But already, and before all the
rest, D'Artagnan had applied a ladder to the house crying, "Athos! it
is I, D'Artagnan! Do not kill me my dearest friend!" And in a moment the
count was clasped in his arms.

In the meantime, Grimaud, preserving his calmness, dismantled the
fortification of the ground-floor, and after having opened the door,
stood with his arms folded quietly on the sill. Only, on hearing the
voice of D'Artagnan, he uttered an exclamation of surprise. The fire
being extinguished, the soldiers presented themselves, Digby at their
head.

"General," said he, "excuse us; what we have done was for love of your
honor, whom we thought lost."

"You are mad, gentlemen. Lost! Is a man like me to be lost? Am I not
permitted to be absent, according to my pleasure, without giving formal
notice? Do you, by chance, take me for a citizen from the city? Is
a gentleman, my friend, my guest, to be besieged, entrapped, and
threatened with death, because he is suspected? What signifies that
word, suspected? Curse me if I don't have every one of you shot like
dogs that the brave gentleman has left alive!"

"General," said Digby, piteously, "there were twenty-eight of us, and
see, there are eight on the ground."

"I authorize M. le Comte de la Fere to send the twenty to join the
eight," said Monk, stretching out his hand to Athos. "Let them return to
camp. Mr. Digby, you will consider yourself un