bade him follow. He readily obeyed; D'Artagnan waited
in an ante-room of the queen's apartments; he could hear voices within,
and presently a hand and an arm, marvellously white and beautiful, came
through the tapestry.

D'Artagnan felt that this was his reward. He dropped on his knees,
seized the hand, and touched it modestly with his lips. Then the hand
was withdrawn, and in his own a ring was left. The tapestry closed, and
his guide, no other than Bonacieux, reappeared and escorted him hastily
to the corridor.

_III.--The Musketeers at La Rochelle_

The siege of La Rochelle was an important affair, one of the chief
political events of the reign of Louis XIII.

For a time D'Artagnan was separated from his friends, for the musketeers
were escorting the king to the seat of war, and our intrepid Gascon was
with the main army. It was now that D'Artagnan began to realise that he
had attracted, not only the displeasure of the cardinal, but also the
deadly hatred of Milady, the cardinal's secret agent, whose overtures at
friendship, made in the cardinal's interest, he had insulted before
leaving Paris, and whose secret shame he had discovered.

Twice his life was nearly taken by hired assassins, and the third time a
present of wine turned out to be poisoned.

To add to his natural discomfort, Madame Bonacieux had disappeared from
Paris, and probably was in prison.

The arrival of the musketeers restored his spirits, and the four were
again inseparable. One drawback to their intercourse was the fact that
the cardinal and his spies were all over the camp, and that,
consequently, it was difficult to talk confidentially without being
overheard.

In order to secure privacy for a conference, they decided to go and
breakfast in a bastion near the enemy's lines, and wagered with some
officers they would stay there an hour. It was a position of terrible
danger, but the feat was accomplished, and the wild undertaking of the
musketeers was acclaimed with tremendous enthusiasm in the French camp.

The noise reached the cardinal's ears, and he inquired its meaning.

"Monseigneur," said the officer, "three musketeers and a guard laid a
wager that they would go and breakfast in the Bastion St. Gervais, and
they breakfasted and held it for two hours against the enemy, killing I
don't know how many Rochellais."

"Did you inquire the names of those three musketeers?"

"Yes, monseigneur. MM. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis."

"