"

"Is that true, also?"

"Ascertain for yourself, sire."

"And from whom?"

"Ah!" sighed D'Artagnan, like a man who is declining to say anything
further.

The king almost bounded from his seat, regardless of ambassadors,
ministers, courtiers, queens, and politics. The queen-mother rose;
she had heard everything, or, if she had not heard everything, she had
guessed it. Madame, almost fainting from anger and fear, endeavored
to rise as the queen-mother had done; but she sank down again upon her
chair, which by an instinctive movement she made roll back a few paces.

"Gentlemen," said the king, "the audience is over; I will communicate my
answer, or rather my will, to Spain and to Holland;" and with a proud,
imperious gesture, he dismissed the ambassadors.

"Take care, my son," said the queen-mother, indignantly, "you are hardly
master of yourself, I think."

"Ah! madame," returned the young lion, with a terrible gesture, "if I
am not mater of myself, I will be, I promise you, of those who do me a
deadly injury; come with me, M. d'Artagnan, come." And he quitted the
room in the midst of general stupefaction and dismay. The king hastily
descended the staircase, and was about to cross the courtyard.

"Sire," said D'Artagnan, "your majesty mistakes the way."

"No; I am going to the stables."

"That is useless, sire, for I have horses ready for your majesty."

The king's only answer was a look, but this look promised more than the
ambition of three D'Artagnans could have dared to hope.

Chapter XXIX. Chaillot.

Although they had not been summoned, Manicamp and Malicorne had followed
the king and D'Artagnan. They were both exceedingly intelligent men;
except that Malicorne was too precipitate, owing to ambition, while
Manicamp was frequently too tardy, owing to indolence. On this occasion,
however, they arrived at precisely the proper moment. Five horses were
in readiness. Two were seized upon by the king and D'Artagnan, two
others by Manicamp and Malicorne, while a groom belonging to the stables
mounted the fifth. The cavalcade set off at a gallop. D'Artagnan had
been very careful in his selection of the horses; they were the very
animals for distressed lovers--horses which did not simply run, but
flew. Within ten minutes after their departure, the cavalcade, amidst a
cloud of dust, arrived at Chaillot. The king literally threw himself off
his horse; but notwithstanding the rapidity with which he accompli