ting under his orders, if he met a
Musketeer of the company of Treville, he drew near and looked at him
in a peculiar manner, and not recognizing in him one of our four
companions, he turned his penetrating look and profound thoughts in
another direction.

One day when oppressed with a mortal weariness of mind, without hope in
the negotiations with the city, without news from England, the cardinal
went out, without any other aim than to be out of doors, and accompanied
only by Cahusac and La Houdiniere, strolled along the beach. Mingling
the immensity of his dreams with the immensity of the ocean, he came,
his horse going at a foot's pace, to a hill from the top of which he
perceived behind a hedge, reclining on the sand and catching in its
passage one of those rays of the sun so rare at this period of the
year, seven men surrounded by empty bottles. Four of these men were
our Musketeers, preparing to listen to a letter one of them had just
received. This letter was so important that it made them forsake their
cards and their dice on the drumhead.

The other three were occupied in opening an enormous flagon of Collicure
wine; these were the lackeys of these gentlemen.

The cardinal was, as we have said, in very low spirits; and nothing when
he was in that state of mind increased his depression so much as gaiety
in others. Besides, he had another strange fancy, which was always to
believe that the causes of his sadness created the gaiety of others.
Making a sign to La Houdiniere and Cahusac to stop, he alighted from
his horse, and went toward these suspected merry companions, hoping, by
means of the sand which deadened the sound of his steps and of the hedge
which concealed his approach, to catch some words of this conversation
which appeared so interesting. At ten paces from the hedge he recognized
the talkative Gascon; and as he had already perceived that these men
were Musketeers, he did not doubt that the three others were those
called the Inseparables; that is to say, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

It may be supposed that his desire to hear the conversation was
augmented by this discovery. His eyes took a strange expression, and
with the step of a tiger-cat he advanced toward the hedge; but he had
not been able to catch more than a few vague syllables without any
positive sense, when a sonorous and short cry made him start, and
attracted the attention of the Musketeers.

"Officer!" cried Grimaud.

"You are spea