" said he to Athos. "Is it a good country?"

"Excellent, my friend," replied the count, without making him observe
that Le Mans was in the same direction as La Touraine, and that
by waiting two days, at most, he might travel with a friend. But
D'Artagnan, more embarrassed than the count, dug, at every explanation,
deeper into the mud, into which he sank by degrees. "I shall set out
to-morrow at daybreak," said he at last. "Till that time, will you come
with me, Raoul?"

"Yes, monsieur le chevalier," said the young man, "if monsieur le comte
does not want me."

"No, Raoul I am to have an audience to-day of Monsieur, the king's
brother; that is all I have to do."

Raoul asked Grimaud for his sword, which the old man brought him
immediately. "Now then," added D'Artagnan, opening his arms to Athos,
"adieu, my dear friend!" Athos held him in a long embrace, and the
musketeer, who knew his discretion so well, murmured in his ear--"An
affair of state," to which Athos only replied by a pressure of the hand,
still more significant. They then separated. Raoul took the arm of his
old friend, who led him along the Rue-Saint-Honore. "I am conducting
you to the abode of the god Plutus," said D'Artagnan to the young man;
"prepare yourself. The whole day you will witness the piling up of
crowns. Heavens! how I am changed!"

"Oh! what numbers of people there are in the street!" said Raoul.

"Is there a procession to-day?" asked D'Artagnan of a passer-by.

"Monsieur, it is a hanging," replied the man.

"What! a hanging at the Greve?" said D'Artagnan.

"Yes, monsieur."

"The devil take the rogue who gets himself hung the day I want to go and
take my rent!" cried D'Artagnan. "Raoul, did you ever see anybody hung?"

"Never, monsieur--thank God!"

"Oh! how young that sounds! If you were on guard in the trenches, as I
was, and a spy! But, pardon me, Raoul, I am doting--you are quite right,
it is a hideous sight to see a person hung! At what hour do they hang
them, monsieur, if you please?"

"Monsieur," replied the stranger respectfully, delighted at joining
conversation with two men of the sword, "it will take place about three
o'clock."

"Aha! it is now only half-past one; let us step out, we shall be there
in time to touch my three hundred and seventy-five livres, and get away
before the arrival of the malefactor."

"Malefactors, monsieur," continued the bourgeois; "there are two of
them."

"Monsieur, I return you many