ive up a king to beersellers,
shopkeepers, and wagoners. Ah! D'Artagnan! perhaps you have done
your duty as a soldier, but as a gentleman, I say that you are very
culpable."

D'Artagnan was chewing the stalk of a flower, unable to reply and
thoroughly uncomfortable; for when turned from the eyes of Athos he
encountered those of Aramis.

"And you, Porthos," continued the count, as if in consideration for
D'Artagnan's embarrassment, "you, the best heart, the best friend, the
best soldier that I know--you, with a soul that makes you worthy of a
birth on the steps of a throne, and who, sooner or later, must receive
your reward from an intelligent king--you, my dear Porthos, you, a
gentleman in manners, in tastes and in courage, you are as culpable as
D'Artagnan."

Porthos blushed, but with pleasure rather than with confusion; and yet,
bowing his head, as if humiliated, he said:

"Yes, yes, my dear count, I feel that you are right."

Athos arose.

"Come," he said, stretching out his hand to D'Artagnan, "come, don't
be sullen, my dear son, for I have said all this to you, if not in the
tone, at least with the feelings of a father. It would have been easier
to me merely to have thanked you for preserving my life and not to have
uttered a word of all this."

"Doubtless, doubtless, Athos. But here it is: you have sentiments, the
devil knows what, such as every one can't entertain. Who could suppose
that a sensible man could leave his house, France, his ward--a charming
youth, for we saw him in the camp--to fly to the aid of a rotten,
worm-eaten royalty, which is going to crumble one of these days like an
old hovel. The sentiments you air are certainly fine, so fine that they
are superhuman."

"However that may be, D'Artagnan," replied Athos, without falling into
the snare which his Gascon friend had prepared for him by an appeal to
his parental love, "however that may be, you know in the bottom of
your heart that it is true; but I am wrong to dispute with my master.
D'Artagnan, I am your prisoner--treat me as such."

"Ah! pardieu!" said D'Artagnan, "you know you will not be my prisoner
very long."

"No," said Aramis, "they will doubtless treat us like the prisoners of
the Philipghauts."

"And how were they treated?" asked D'Artagnan.

"Why," said Aramis, "one-half were hanged and the other half were shot."

"Well, I," said D'Artagnan "I answer that while there remains a drop of
blood in my veins you will be nei