there you can practice some of the best passes, so
as to get your limbs as elastic as possible."

"Thank you. I shall be waiting for you in the wood of Vincennes, close
to Minimes."

"All's right, then. Where am I to find this M. de Saint-Aignan?"

"At the Palais Royal."

Porthos rang a huge handbell. "My court suit," he said to the servant
who answered the summons, "my horse, and a led horse to accompany me."
Then, turning to Raoul as soon as the servant had quitted the room, he
said, "Does your father know anything about this?"

"No; I am going to write to him."

"And D'Artagnan?"

"No, nor D'Artagnan, either. He is very cautious, you know, and might
have diverted me from my purpose."

"D'Artagnan is a sound adviser, though," said Porthos, astonished that,
in his own loyal faith in D'Artagnan, anyone could have thought of
himself, so long as there was a D'Artagnan in the world.

"Dear M. de Valon," replied Raoul, "do not question me any more, I
implore you. I have told you all that I had to say; it is prompt action
that I now expect, as sharp and decided as you know how to arrange it.
That, indeed, is my reason for having chosen you."

"You will be satisfied with me," replied Porthos.

"Do not forget, either, that except ourselves, no one must know anything
of this meeting."

"People always find these things out," said Porthos, "when a dead body
is discovered in a wood. But I promise you everything, my dear friend,
except concealing the dead body. There it is, and it must be seen, as a
matter of course. It is a principle of mine not to bury bodies. That has
a smack of the assassin about it. Every risk must run its own risk."

"To work, then, my dear friend."

"Rely upon me," said the giant, finishing the bottle, while the servant
spread out upon a sofa the gorgeously-decorated dress trimmed with lace.
Raoul left the room, saying to himself, with a secret delight,
"Perfidious king! traitorous monarch! I cannot reach thee. I do not wish
it; for kings are sacred objects. But your friend, your accomplice, your
panderer--the coward who represents you--shall pay for your crime. I
will kill him in thy name, and afterward we will think of Louise."

CHAPTER LXII.

THE CHANGE OF RESIDENCE, THE TRAP-DOOR, AND THE PORTRAIT.

Porthos, intrusted, to his great delight, with this mission, which made
him feel young again, took half an hour less than his usual time to put
on his court suit. To show that he