useless fatigue.
Myself and Planchet are all that such a simple expedition requires."

To this Athos replied quietly: "We also have money left--for I have not
yet drunk all my share of the diamond, and Porthos and Aramis have not
eaten all theirs. We can therefore use up four horses as well as one.
But consider, d'Artagnan," added he, in a tone so solemn that it made
the young man shudder, "consider that Bethune is a city where the
cardinal has given rendezvous to a woman who, wherever she goes, brings
misery with her. If you had only to deal with four men, d'Artagnan, I
would allow you to go alone. You have to do with that woman! We four
will go; and I hope to God that with our four lackeys we may be in
sufficient number."

"You terrify me, Athos!" cried d'Artagnan. "My God! what do you fear?"

"Everything!" replied Athos.

D'Artagnan examined the countenances of his companions, which, like that
of Athos, wore an impression of deep anxiety; and they continued their
route as fast as their horses could carry them, but without adding
another word.

On the evening of the twenty-fifth, as they were entering Arras, and as
d'Artagnan was dismounting at the inn of the Golden Harrow to drink a
glass of wine, a horseman came out of the post yard, where he had just
had a relay, started off at a gallop, and with a fresh horse took the
road to Paris. At the moment he passed through the gateway into the
street, the wind blew open the cloak in which he was wrapped, although
it was in the month of August, and lifted his hat, which the traveler
seized with his hand the moment it had left his head, pulling it eagerly
over his eyes.

D'Artagnan, who had his eyes fixed upon this man, became very pale, and
let his glass fall.

"What is the matter, monsieur?" said Planchet. "Oh, come, gentlemen, my
master is ill!"

The three friends hastened toward d'Artagnan, who, instead of being ill,
ran toward his horse. They stopped him at the door.

"Well, where the devil are you going now?" cried Athos.

"It is he!" cried d'Artagnan, pale with anger, and with the sweat on his
brow, "it is he! let me overtake him!"

"He? What he?" asked Athos.

"He, that man!"

"What man?"

"That cursed man, my evil genius, whom I have always met with when
threatened by some misfortune, he who accompanied that horrible woman
when I met her for the first time, he whom I was seeking when I offended
our Athos, he whom I saw on the very morning Madame B