eved, I
am bowed down with mental anguish, and I have need of all my presence
of mind, all my powers of reflection, to extricate you from the false
position in which I have so imprudently involved you; but nothing can be
more clear, nothing more plain, than your position, henceforth. The king
Louis XIV. has no longer now but one enemy: that enemy is myself,
myself alone. I have made you a prisoner, you have followed me, to-day
I liberate you, you fly back to your prince. You can perceive, Porthos,
there is not one difficulty in all this."

"Do you think so?" said Porthos.

"I am quite sure of it."

"Then why," said the admirable good sense of Porthos, "then why, if
we are in such an easy position, why, my friend, do we prepare cannon,
muskets, and engines of all sorts? It seems to me it would be much
more simple to say to Captain d'Artagnan: 'My dear friend, we have been
mistaken; that error is to be repaired; open the door to us, let us pass
through, and we will say good-bye.'"

"Ah! that!" said Aramis, shaking his head.

"Why do you say 'that'? Do you not approve of my plan, my friend?"

"I see a difficulty in it."

"What is it?"

"The hypothesis that D'Artagnan may come with orders which will oblige
us to defend ourselves."

"What! defend ourselves against D'Artagnan? Folly! Against the good
D'Artagnan!"

Aramis once more replied by shaking his head.

"Porthos," at length said he, "if I have had the matches lighted and
the guns pointed, if I have had the signal of alarm sounded, if I have
called every man to his post upon the ramparts, those good ramparts of
Belle-Isle which you have so well fortified, it was not for nothing.
Wait to judge; or rather, no, do not wait--"

"What can I do?"

"If I knew, my friend, I would have told you."

"But there is one thing much more simple than defending ourselves:--a
boat, and away for France--where--"

"My dear friend," said Aramis, smiling with a strong shade of sadness,
"do not let us reason like children; let us be men in council and in
execution.--But, hark! I hear a hail for landing at the port. Attention,
Porthos, serious attention!"

"It is D'Artagnan, no doubt," said Porthos, in a voice of thunder,
approaching the parapet.

"Yes, it is I," replied the captain of the musketeers, running lightly
up the steps of the mole, and gaining rapidly the little esplanade on
which his two friends waited for him. As soon as he came towards them,
Porthos and Ara