ness. After a minute or two they were able to distinguish a man, who
approached them, swimming vigorously.

Athos extended his arm toward him, pointing him out to his companions.

"Yes, yes, I see him well enough," said D'Artagnan.

"He--again!" cried Porthos, who was breathing like a blacksmith's
bellows; "why, he is made of iron."

"Oh, my God!" muttered Athos.

Aramis and D'Artagnan whispered to each other.

Mordaunt made several strokes more, and raising his arm in sign of
distress above the waves: "Pity, pity on me, gentlemen, in Heaven's
name! my strength is failing me; I am dying."

The voice that implored aid was so piteous that it awakened pity in the
heart of Athos.

"Poor fellow!" he exclaimed.

"Indeed!" said D'Artagnan, "monsters have only to complain to gain your
sympathy. I believe he's swimming toward us. Does he think we are going
to take him in? Row, Porthos, row." And setting the example he plowed
his oar into the sea; two strokes took the bark on twenty fathoms
further.

"Oh! you will not abandon me! You will not leave me to perish! You will
not be pitiless!" cried Mordaunt.

"Ah! ah!" said Porthos to Mordaunt, "I think we have you now, my hero!
and there are no doors by which you can escape this time but those of
hell."

"Oh! Porthos!" murmured the Comte de la Fere.

"Oh, pray, for mercy's sake, don't fly from me. For pity's sake!" cried
the young man, whose agony-drawn breath at times, when his head went
under water, under the wave, exhaled and made the icy waters bubble.

D'Artagnan, however, who had consulted with Aramis, spoke to the poor
wretch. "Go away," he said; "your repentance is too recent to inspire
confidence. See! the vessel in which you wished to fry us is still
smoking; and the situation in which you are is a bed of roses compared
to that in which you wished to place us and in which you have placed
Monsieur Groslow and his companions."

"Sir!" replied Mordaunt, in a tone of deep despair, "my penitence is
sincere. Gentlemen, I am young, scarcely twenty-three years old. I was
drawn on by a very natural resentment to avenge my mother. You would
have done what I did."

Mordaunt wanted now only two or three fathoms to reach the boat, for the
approach of death seemed to give him supernatural strength.

"Alas!" he said, "I am then to die? You are going to kill the son, as
you killed the mother! Surely, if I am culpable and if I ask for pardon,
I ought to be forgiven."