r. So no
more delay, no more hesitation; or else whatever may be my repugnance
to soiling my sword a second time with the blood of a wretch like you, I
swear by my faith as an honest man--" and at these words d'Artagnan made
so fierce a gesture that the wounded man sprang up.

"Stop, stop!" cried he, regaining strength by force of terror. "I will
go--I will go!"

D'Artagnan took the soldier's arquebus, made him go on before him, and
urged him toward his companion by pricking him behind with his sword.

It was a frightful thing to see this wretch, leaving a long track of
blood on the ground he passed over, pale with approaching death, trying
to drag himself along without being seen to the body of his accomplice,
which lay twenty paces from him.

Terror was so strongly painted on his face, covered with a cold sweat,
that d'Artagnan took pity on him, and casting upon him a look of
contempt, "Stop," said he, "I will show you the difference between a
man of courage and such a coward as you. Stay where you are; I will go
myself."

And with a light step, an eye on the watch, observing the movements
of the enemy and taking advantage of the accidents of the ground,
d'Artagnan succeeded in reaching the second soldier.

There were two means of gaining his object--to search him on the spot,
or to carry him away, making a buckler of his body, and search him in
the trench.

D'Artagnan preferred the second means, and lifted the assassin onto his
shoulders at the moment the enemy fired.

A slight shock, the dull noise of three balls which penetrated the
flesh, a last cry, a convulsion of agony, proved to d'Artagnan that the
would-be assassin had saved his life.

D'Artagnan regained the trench, and threw the corpse beside the wounded
man, who was as pale as death.

Then he began to search. A leather pocketbook, a purse, in which was
evidently a part of the sum which the bandit had received, with a dice
box and dice, completed the possessions of the dead man.

He left the box and dice where they fell, threw the purse to the wounded
man, and eagerly opened the pocketbook.

Among some unimportant papers he found the following letter, that which
he had sought at the risk of his life:

"Since you have lost sight of that woman and she is now in safety in
the convent, which you should never have allowed her to reach, try, at
least, not to miss the man. If you do, you know that my hand stretches
far, and that you shall pay ve