ith one voice.

"On guard, then!" cried Athos.

Immediately eight swords glittered in the rays of the setting sun,
and the combat began with an animosity very natural between men twice
enemies.

Athos fenced with as much calmness and method as if he had been
practicing in a fencing school.

Porthos, abated, no doubt, of his too-great confidence by his adventure
of Chantilly, played with skill and prudence. Aramis, who had the third
canto of his poem to finish, behaved like a man in haste.

Athos killed his adversary first. He hit him but once, but as he had
foretold, that hit was a mortal one; the sword pierced his heart.

Second, Porthos stretched his upon the grass with a wound through his
thigh, As the Englishman, without making any further resistance, then
surrendered his sword, Porthos took him up in his arms and bore him to
his carriage.

Aramis pushed his so vigorously that after going back fifty paces,
the man ended by fairly taking to his heels, and disappeared amid the
hooting of the lackeys.

As to d'Artagnan, he fought purely and simply on the defensive; and when
he saw his adversary pretty well fatigued, with a vigorous side thrust
sent his sword flying. The baron, finding himself disarmed, took two
or three steps back, but in this movement his foot slipped and he fell
backward.

D'Artagnan was over him at a bound, and said to the Englishman, pointing
his sword to his throat, "I could kill you, my Lord, you are completely
in my hands; but I spare your life for the sake of your sister."

D'Artagnan was at the height of joy; he had realized the plan he had
imagined beforehand, whose picturing had produced the smiles we noted
upon his face.

The Englishman, delighted at having to do with a gentleman of such a
kind disposition, pressed d'Artagnan in his arms, and paid a thousand
compliments to the three Musketeers, and as Porthos's adversary was
already installed in the carriage, and as Aramis's had taken to his
heels, they had nothing to think about but the dead.

As Porthos and Aramis were undressing him, in the hope of finding his
wound not mortal, a large purse dropped from his clothes. D'Artagnan
picked it up and offered it to Lord de Winter.

"What the devil would you have me do with that?" said the Englishman.

"You can restore it to his family," said d'Artagnan.

"His family will care much about such a trifle as that! His family will
inherit fifteen thousand louis a year from him. Kee