nking. Well, I was not hot-headed then--"

"Well, but what else could you play for? You had nothing left?"

"Oh, yes, my friend; there was still that diamond left which sparkles on
your finger, and which I had observed yesterday."

"This diamond!" said d'Artagnan, placing his hand eagerly on his ring.

"And as I am a connoisseur in such things, having had a few of my own
once, I estimated it at a thousand pistoles."

"I hope," said d'Artagnan, half dead with fright, "you made no mention
of my diamond?"

"On the contrary, my dear friend, this diamond became our only resource;
with it I might regain our horses and their harnesses, and even money to
pay our expenses on the road."

"Athos, you make me tremble!" cried d'Artagnan.

"I mentioned your diamond then to my adversary, who had likewise
remarked it. What the devil, my dear, do you think you can wear a star
from heaven on your finger, and nobody observe it? Impossible!"

"Go on, go on, my dear fellow!" said d'Artagnan; "for upon my honor, you
will kill me with your indifference."

"We divided, then, this diamond into ten parts of a hundred pistoles
each."

"You are laughing at me, and want to try me!" said d'Artagnan, whom
anger began to take by the hair, as Minerva takes Achilles, in the
ILLIAD.

"No, I do not jest, MORDIEU! I should like to have seen you in my place!
I had been fifteen days without seeing a human face, and had been left
to brutalize myself in the company of bottles."

"That was no reason for staking my diamond!" replied d'Artagnan, closing
his hand with a nervous spasm.

"Hear the end. Ten parts of a hundred pistoles each, in ten throws,
without revenge; in thirteen throws I had lost all--in thirteen throws.
The number thirteen was always fatal to me; it was on the thirteenth of
July that--"

"VENTREBLEU!" cried d'Artagnan, rising from the table, the story of the
present day making him forget that of the preceding one.

"Patience!" said Athos; "I had a plan. The Englishman was an original; I
had seen him conversing that morning with Grimaud, and Grimaud had told
me that he had made him proposals to enter into his service. I staked
Grimaud, the silent Grimaud, divided into ten portions."

"Well, what next?" said d'Artagnan, laughing in spite of himself.

"Grimaud himself, understand; and with the ten parts of Grimaud, which
are not worth a ducatoon, I regained the diamond. Tell me, now, if
persistence is not a virtue?"

"My fa