y brown and nervous, were
getting white, as if the blood began to chill there.

D'Artagnan accosted the officers with the shade of affability which
distinguishes superior men, and received in return for his courtesy two
most respectful bows.

"Ah! what a lucky chance to see you here, Monsieur d'Artagnan!" cried
the falconer.

"It is rather I who should say that, messieurs," replied the captain,
"for, nowadays, the king makes more frequent use of his musketeers than
of his falcons."

"Ah! it is not as it was in the good old times," sighed the falconer.
"Do you remember, Monsieur d'Artagnan, when the late king flew the pie
in the vineyards beyond Beaugence? Ah! dame! you were not captain of the
musketeers at that time, Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"And you were nothing but under-corporal of the tiercelets," replied
D'Artagnan, laughing. "Never mind that; it was a good time, seeing that
it is always a good time when we are young. Good day, monsieur the
captain of the harriers."

"You do me honor, Monsieur le Comte," said the latter. D'Artagnan made
no reply. The title of comte had not struck him; D'Artagnan had been a
comte four years.

"Are you not very much fatigued with the long journey you have had,
Monsieur le Capitaine?" continued the falconer. "It must be full two
hundred leagues from hence to Pignerol."

"Two hundred and sixty to go, and as many to come back," said
D'Artagnan, quietly.

"And," said the falconer, "is _he_ well?"

"Who?" asked D'Artagnan.

"Why, poor M. Fouquet," continued the falconer, still in a low voice.
The captain of the harriers had prudently withdrawn.

"No," replied D'Artagnan, "the poor man frets terribly; he cannot
comprehend how imprisonment can be a favor; he says that the parliament
had absolved him by banishing him, and that banishment is liberty. He
cannot imagine that they had sworn his death, and that to save his life
from the claws of the parliament was to have too much obligation to
God."

"Ah! yes; the poor man had a near chance of the scaffold," replied the
falconer; "it is said that M. Colbert had given orders to the governor
of the Bastille, and that the execution was ordered."

"Enough!" said D'Artagnan, pensively, and with a view of cutting short
the conversation.

"Yes," said the captain of the harriers, drawing toward them, "M.
Fouquet is now at Pignerol; he has richly deserved it. He has had the
good fortune to be conducted there by you; he had robbed the K