with great glee, cried
out, on seeing him: 'Ah! thank you, monseigneur!'"

"A most strange story!" murmured the comte, looking at Raoul.

"And what did you do?" asked the latter of the fisherman.

"You must know, monsieur, that two poor men, such as we are, could be
no match for two gentlemen; but when one of them turned out to be the
devil, we had no earthly chance! My companion and I did not stop to
consult one another; we made but one jump into the sea, for we were
within seven or eight hundred feet of the shore."

"Well, and then?"

"Why, and then, monseigneur, as there was a little wind from the
southwest, the boat drifted into the sands of Sainte-Marguerite's."

"Oh!--but the travelers?"

"Bah! you need not be uneasy about them! It was pretty plain that one
was the devil, and protected the other; for when we recovered the boat,
after she got afloat again, instead of finding these two creatures
injured by the shock, we found nothing, not even the carriage or the
case."

"Very strange! very strange!" repeated the comte. "But after that, what
did you do, my friend?"

"I made my complaint to the governor of Sainte-Marguerite's, who brought
my finger under my nose by telling me if I plagued him with such silly
stories he would have me flogged."

"What! did the governor himself say so?"

"Yes, monsieur; and yet my boat was injured, seriously injured, for the
prow is left upon the point of Sainte-Marguerite's, and the carpenter
asks a hundred and twenty livres to repair it."

"Very well," replied Raoul; "you will be exempted from the service. Go."

"We will go to Sainte-Marguerite's, shall we?" said the comte to
Bragelonne, as the man walked away.

"Yes, monsieur, for there is something to be cleared up; that man does
not seem to me to have told the truth."

"Nor to me either, Raoul. The story of the masked man and the carriage
having disappeared, may be told to conceal some violence these fellows
have committed upon their passengers in the open sea, to punish him for
his persistence in embarking."

"I formed the same suspicion; the carriage was more likely to contain
property than a man."

"We shall see to that, Raoul. The gentleman very much resembles
D'Artagnan; I recognize his methods of proceeding. Alas! we are no
longer the young invincibles of former days. Who knows whether the
hatchet or the iron bar of this miserable coaster has not succeeded in
doing that which the best blades of Europe, b