will answer for it, you shall have all you desire."

The Englishmen bowed and went upstairs.

"Now I am alone, my dear Athos," said d'Artagnan; "open the door, I beg
of you."

"Instantly," said Athos.

Then was heard a great noise of fagots being removed and of the groaning
of posts; these were the counterscarps and bastions of Athos, which the
besieged himself demolished.

An instant after, the broken door was removed, and the pale face
of Athos appeared, who with a rapid glance took a survey of the
surroundings.

D'Artagnan threw himself on his neck and embraced him tenderly. He then
tried to draw him from his moist abode, but to his surprise he perceived
that Athos staggered.

"You are wounded," said he.

"I! Not at all. I am dead drunk, that's all, and never did a man more
strongly set about getting so. By the Lord, my good host! I must at
least have drunk for my part a hundred and fifty bottles."

"Mercy!" cried the host, "if the lackey has drunk only half as much as
the master, I am a ruined man."

"Grimaud is a well-bred lackey. He would never think of faring in the
same manner as his master; he only drank from the cask. Hark! I don't
think he put the faucet in again. Do you hear it? It is running now."

D'Artagnan burst into a laugh which changed the shiver of the host into
a burning fever.

In the meantime, Grimaud appeared in his turn behind his master, with
the musketoon on his shoulder, and his head shaking. Like one of those
drunken satyrs in the pictures of Rubens. He was moistened before and
behind with a greasy liquid which the host recognized as his best olive
oil.

The four crossed the public room and proceeded to take possession of the
best apartment in the house, which d'Artagnan occupied with authority.

In the meantime the host and his wife hurried down with lamps into the
cellar, which had so long been interdicted to them and where a frightful
spectacle awaited them.

Beyond the fortifications through which Athos had made a breach in order
to get out, and which were composed of fagots, planks, and empty casks,
heaped up according to all the rules of the strategic art, they found,
swimming in puddles of oil and wine, the bones and fragments of all the
hams they had eaten; while a heap of broken bottles filled the whole
left-hand corner of the cellar, and a tun, the cock of which was left
running, was yielding, by this means, the last drop of its blood. "The
image of devastation