there was one circumstance which created a powerful
obstacle to the accomplishment of this threat; which was, as we have
related, that his sword had been in his first conflict broken in two,
and which he had entirely forgotten. Hence, it resulted when d'Artagnan
proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and
simply armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in
length, which the host had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the
rest of the blade, the master had slyly put that on one side to make
himself a larding pin.

But this deception would probably not have stopped our fiery young man
if the host had not reflected that the reclamation which his guest made
was perfectly just.

"But, after all," said he, lowering the point of his spit, "where is
this letter?"

"Yes, where is this letter?" cried d'Artagnan. "In the first place, I
warn you that that letter is for Monsieur de Treville, and it must be
found, he will know how to find it."

His threat completed the intimidation of the host. After the king and
the cardinal, M. de Treville was the man whose name was perhaps most
frequently repeated by the military, and even by citizens. There was,
to be sure, Father Joseph, but his name was never pronounced but with a
subdued voice, such was the terror inspired by his Gray Eminence, as the
cardinal's familiar was called.

Throwing down his spit, and ordering his wife to do the same with her
broom handle, and the servants with their sticks, he set the first
example of commencing an earnest search for the lost letter.

"Does the letter contain anything valuable?" demanded the host, after a
few minutes of useless investigation.

"Zounds! I think it does indeed!" cried the Gascon, who reckoned upon
this letter for making his way at court. "It contained my fortune!"

"Bills upon Spain?" asked the disturbed host.

"Bills upon his Majesty's private treasury," answered d'Artagnan, who,
reckoning upon entering into the king's service in consequence of this
recommendation, believed he could make this somewhat hazardous reply
without telling of a falsehood.

"The devil!" cried the host, at his wit's end.

"But it's of no importance," continued d'Artagnan, with natural
assurance; "it's of no importance. The money is nothing; that letter was
everything. I would rather have lost a thousand pistoles than have lost
it." He would not have risked more if he had said twenty thousand; but a
certa