floor, his eye intensely fixed upon the
king his brother. He reproached him by a sublime silence with all his
misfortunes past, with all his tortures to come. Against this language
of the soul the king felt he had no power; he cast down his eyes,
dragging away precipitately his brother and sister, forgetting his
mother sitting motionless within three paces of the son whom she left a
second time to be condemned to death. Philippe approached Anne of
Austria, and said to her, in a soft and nobly agitated voice:

"If I were not your son, I should curse you, my mother, for having
rendered me so unhappy."

D'Artagnan felt a shudder pass through the marrow of his bones. He bowed
respectfully to the young prince, and said, as he bent, "Excuse me,
monseigneur, I am but a soldier, and my oaths are his who has just left
the chamber."

"Thank you, M. d'Artagnan. But what is become of M. d'Herblay?"

"M. d'Herblay is in safety, monseigneur," said a voice behind them; "and
no one, while I live and am free, shall cause a hair to fall from his
head."

"Monsieur Fouquet," said the prince, smiling sadly.

"Pardon me, monseigneur," said Fouquet, kneeling, "but he who is just
gone out from hence was my guest."

"Here are," murmured Philippe, with a sigh, "brave friends and good
hearts. They make me regret the world. On, M. d'Artagnan, I follow you."

At the moment the captain of the musketeers was about to leave the room
with his prisoner, Colbert appeared, and, after remitting an order from
the king to D'Artagnan, retired. D'Artagnan read the paper, and then
crushed it in his hand with rage.

"What is it?" asked the prince.

"Read, monseigneur," replied the musketeer.

Philippe read the following words, hastily traced by the hand of the
king:--"M. d'Artagnan will conduct the prisoner to the Iles
Sainte-Marguerite. He will cover his face with an iron vizor, which the
prisoner cannot raise without peril of his life."

"That is just," said Philippe, with resignation, "I am ready."

"Aramis was right," said Fouquet, in a low voice to the musketeer, "this
one is quite as much of a king as the other."

"More," replied D'Artagnan. "He only wants you and me."

CHAPTER XCIX.

IN WHICH PORTHOS THINKS HE IS PURSUING A DUCHY.

Aramis and Porthos, having profited by the time granted them by Fouquet,
did honor to the French cavalry by their speed. Porthos did not clearly
understand for what kind of mission he was forced to