the conversation about
rain and fine weather; the travelers replied. He drank to their good
health, and the travelers returned his politeness.

But at the moment Mousqueton came to announce that the horses were
ready, and they were arising from table, the stranger proposed to
Porthos to drink the health of the cardinal. Porthos replied that he
asked no better if the stranger, in his turn, would drink the health of
the king. The stranger cried that he acknowledged no other king but his
Eminence. Porthos called him drunk, and the stranger drew his sword.

"You have committed a piece of folly," said Athos, "but it can't be
helped; there is no drawing back. Kill the fellow, and rejoin us as soon
as you can."

All three remounted their horses, and set out at a good pace, while
Porthos was promising his adversary to perforate him with all the
thrusts known in the fencing schools.

"There goes one!" cried Athos, at the end of five hundred paces.

"But why did that man attack Porthos rather than any other one of us?"
asked Aramis.

"Because, as Porthos was talking louder than the rest of us, he took him
for the chief," said d'Artagnan.

"I always said that this cadet from Gascony was a well of wisdom,"
murmured Athos; and the travelers continued their route.

At Beauvais they stopped two hours, as well to breathe their horses a
little as to wait for Porthos. At the end of two hours, as Porthos did
not come, not any news of him, they resumed their journey.

At a league from Beauvais, where the road was confined between two high
banks, they fell in with eight or ten men who, taking advantage of the
road being unpaved in this spot, appeared to be employed in digging
holes and filling up the ruts with mud.

Aramis, not liking to soil his boots with this artificial mortar,
apostrophized them rather sharply. Athos wished to restrain him, but
it was too late. The laborers began to jeer the travelers and by their
insolence disturbed the equanimity even of the cool Athos, who urged on
his horse against one of them.

Then each of these men retreated as far as the ditch, from which each
took a concealed musket; the result was that our seven travelers were
outnumbered in weapons. Aramis received a ball which passed through his
shoulder, and Mousqueton another ball which lodged in the fleshy part
which prolongs the lower portion of the loins. Therefore Mousqueton
alone fell from his horse, not because he was severely wounded,