taking a part in the scene that was going on below.

"But I tell you that I am the mistress of the house, gentlemen! I tell
you I am Madame Bonacieux; I tell you I belong to the queen!" cried the
unfortunate woman.

"Madame Bonacieux!" murmured d'Artagnan. "Can I be so lucky as to find
what everybody is seeking for?"

The voice became more and more indistinct; a tumultuous movement shook
the partition. The victim resisted as much as a woman could resist four
men.

"Pardon, gentlemen--par--" murmured the voice, which could now only be
heard in inarticulate sounds.

"They are binding her; they are going to drag her away," cried
d'Artagnan to himself, springing up from the floor. "My sword! Good, it
is by my side! Planchet!"

"Monsieur."

"Run and seek Athos, Porthos and Aramis. One of the three will certainly
be at home, perhaps all three. Tell them to take arms, to come here, and
to run! Ah, I remember, Athos is at Monsieur de Treville's."

"But where are you going, monsieur, where are you going?"

"I am going down by the window, in order to be there the sooner," cried
d'Artagnan. "You put back the boards, sweep the floor, go out at the
door, and run as I told you."

"Oh, monsieur! Monsieur! You will kill yourself," cried Planchet.

"Hold your tongue, stupid fellow," said d'Artagnan; and laying hold of
the casement, he let himself gently down from the first story, which
fortunately was not very elevated, without doing himself the slightest
injury.

He then went straight to the door and knocked, murmuring, "I will go
myself and be caught in the mousetrap, but woe be to the cats that shall
pounce upon such a mouse!"

The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man
before the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door was opened, and
d'Artagnan, sword in hand, rushed into the rooms of M. Bonacieux, the
door of which doubtless acted upon by a spring, closed after him.

Then those who dwelt in Bonacieux's unfortunate house, together with
the nearest neighbors, heard loud cries, stamping of feet, clashing of
swords, and breaking of furniture. A moment after, those who, surprised
by this tumult, had gone to their windows to learn the cause of it, saw
the door open, and four men, clothed in black, not COME out of it, but
FLY, like so many frightened crows, leaving on the ground and on the
corners of the furniture, feathers from their wings; that is to say,
patches of their clothes and fragments