but a league and a half in
length, with the breadth of a league; a real park. Let us try to amuse
ourselves."

"As you please, D'Artagnan; not for the sake of amusing ourselves, but
to gain an opportunity for talking freely."

D'Artagnan made a sign to a soldier, who brought the gentlemen some
guns, and then returned to the fort.

"And now," said the musketeer, "answer me the question put to you by
that black-looking Saint-Mars: what did you come to do at the Lerin
Isles?"

"To bid you farewell."

"Bid me farewell! What do you mean by that? Is Raoul going anywhere?"

"Yes."

"Then I will lay a wager it is with M. de Beaufort."

"With M. de Beaufort it is, my dear friend. You always guess correctly."

"From habit."

Whilst the two friends were commencing their conversation, Raoul, with
his head hanging down and his heart oppressed, seated himself on a
mossy rock, his gun across his knees, looking at the sea--looking at
the heavens, and listening to the voice of his soul; he allowed the
sportsmen to attain a considerable distance from him. D'Artagnan
remarked his absence.

"He has not recovered the blow?" said he to Athos.

"He is struck to death."

"Oh! your fears exaggerate, I hope. Raoul is of a tempered nature.
Around all hearts as noble as his, there is a second envelope that forms
a cuirass. The first bleeds, the second resists."

"No," replied Athos, "Raoul will die of it."

"_Mordioux!_" said D'Artagnan, in a melancholy tone. And he did not add
a word to this exclamation. Then, a minute after, "Why do you let him
go?"

"Because he insists on going."

"And why do you not go with him?"

"Because I could not bear to see him die."

D'Artagnan looked his friend earnestly in the face. "You know one
thing," continued the comte, leaning upon the arm of the captain; "you
know that in the course of my life I have been afraid of but few things.
Well! I have an incessant gnawing, insurmountable fear that an hour will
come in which I shall hold the dead body of that boy in my arms."

"Oh!" murmured D'Artagnan; "oh!"

"He will die, I know, I have a perfect conviction of that; but I would
not see him die."

"How is this, Athos? you come and place yourself in the presence of the
bravest man, you say you have ever seen, of your own D'Artagnan, of that
man without an equal, as you formerly called him, and you come and tell
him, with your arms folded, that you are afraid of witnessing the death
of your