"

"The cellar--what cellar?"

"Our landlord's, to be sure. Mousqueton is propped against the door and
here's the key."

"Bravo!" said Aramis, "how did you manage it?"

"Like everything else, with money; but it cost me dear."

"How much?" asked Athos.

"Five hundred pounds."

"And where did you get so much money?" said Athos. "Had you, then, that
sum?"

"The queen's famous diamond," answered D'Artagnan, with a sigh.

"Ah, true," said Aramis. "I recognized it on your finger."

"You bought it back, then, from Monsieur des Essarts?" asked Porthos.

"Yes, but it was fated that I should not keep it."

"So, then, we are all right as regards the executioner," said Athos;
"but unfortunately every executioner has his assistant, his man, or
whatever you call him."

"And this one had his," said D'Artagnan; "but, as good luck would have
it, just as I thought I should have two affairs to manage, our friend
was brought home with a broken leg. In the excess of his zeal he had
accompanied the cart containing the scaffolding as far as the king's
window, and one of the crossbeams fell on his leg and broke it."

"Ah!" cried Aramis, "that accounts for the cry I heard."

"Probably," said D'Artagnan, "but as he is a thoughtful young man he
promised to send four expert workmen in his place to help those already
at the scaffold, and wrote the moment he was brought home to Master Tom
Lowe, an assistant carpenter and friend of his, to go down to Whitehall,
with three of his friends. Here's the letter he sent by a messenger, for
sixpence, who sold it to me for a guinea."

"And what on earth are you going to do with it?" asked Athos.

"Can't you guess, my dear Athos? You, who speak English like John
Bull himself, are Master Tom Lowe, we, your three companions. Do you
understand it now?"

Athos uttered a cry of joy and admiration, ran to a closet and drew
forth workmen's clothes, which the four friends immediately put on; they
then left the hotel, Athos carrying a saw, Porthos a vise, Aramis an axe
and D'Artagnan a hammer and some nails.

The letter from the executioner's assistant satisfied the master
carpenter that those were the men he expected.

65. The Workmen.

Toward midnight Charles heard a great noise beneath his window. It arose
from blows of hammer and hatchet, clinking of pincers and cranching of
saws.

Lying dressed upon his bed, the noise awoke him with a start and found a
gloomy echo in his hear