s started.

"What the devil are you doing there in such an agitated manner?" said
the musketeer.

"Hush!" said Porthos.

"We are going off on a mission of great importance," added the bishop.

"You are very fortunate," said the musketeer.

"Oh, dear me!" said Porthos, "I feel so wearied; I would far sooner have
been fast asleep. But the service of the king...."

"Have you seen M. Fouquet?" said Aramis to D'Artagnan.

"Yes, this very minute, in a carriage."

"What did he say to you?"

"'Adieu;' nothing more."

"Was that all?"

"What else do you think he could say? Am I worth anything now, since you
have got into such high favor?"

"Listen," said Aramis, embracing the musketeer; "your good times are
returning again. You will have no occasion to be jealous of any one."

"Ah! bah!"

"I predict that something will happen to you to-day which will increase
your importance more than ever."

"Really?"

"You know that I know all the news?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Come, Porthos, are you ready? Let us go."

"I am quite ready, Aramis."

"Let us embrace D'Artagnan first."

"Most certainly."

"But the horses?"

"Oh! there is no want of them here. Will you have mine?"

"No; Porthos has his own stud. So adieu! adieu!"

The fugitives mounted their horses beneath the very eyes of the captain
of the musketeers, who held Porthos's stirrup for him, and gazed after
them until they were out of sight.

"On any other occasion," thought the Gascon, "I should say that those
gentlemen were making their escape; but in these days politics seem
so changed that such an exit is termed going on a mission. I have no
objection; let me attend to my own affairs, that is more than enough for
_me_,"--and he philosophically entered his apartments.

Chapter XXII. Showing How the Countersign Was Respected at the Bastile.

Fouquet tore along as fast as his horses could drag him. On his way he
trembled with horror at the idea of what had just been revealed to him.

"What must have been," he thought, "the youth of those extraordinary
men, who, even as age is stealing fast upon them, are still able to
conceive such gigantic plans, and carry them through without a tremor?"

At one moment he could not resist the idea that all Aramis had just been
recounting to him was nothing more than a dream, and whether the fable
itself was not the snare; so that when Fouquet arrived at the Bastile,
he might possibly find an order of arrest, which w