o
pardon them, and there is nothing left to them but one thing, and that
is to kill him. Have you never heard what Oliver Cromwell said when he
came to Paris and was shown the dungeon at Vincennes where Monsieur de
Vendome was imprisoned?"

"What did he say?" asked Porthos.

"'Princes must be knocked on the head.'"

"I remember it," said Athos.

"And you fancy he will not put his maxim into execution, now that he has
got hold of the king?"

"On the contrary, I am certain he will do so. But then that is all the
more reason why we should not abandon the august head so threatened."

"Athos, you are becoming mad."

"No, my friend," Athos gently replied, "but De Winter sought us out
in France and introduced us, Monsieur d'Herblay and myself, to Madame
Henrietta. Her majesty did us the honor to ask our aid for her husband.
We engaged our word; our word included everything. It was our strength,
our intelligence, our life, in short, that we promised. It remains now
for us to keep our word. Is that your opinion, D'Herblay?"

"Yes," said Aramis, "we have promised."

"Then," continued Athos, "we have another reason; it is this--listen: In
France at this moment everything is poor and paltry. We have a king ten
years old, who doesn't yet know what he wants; we have a queen blinded
by a belated passion; we have a minister who governs France as he would
govern a great farm--that is to say, intent only on turning out all the
gold he can by the exercise of Italian cunning and invention; we have
princes who set up a personal and egotistic opposition, who will draw
from Mazarin's hands only a few ingots of gold or some shreds of power
granted as bribes. I have served them without enthusiasm--God knows that
I estimated them at their real value, and that they are not high in my
esteem--but on principle. To-day I am engaged in a different affair.
I have encountered misfortune in a high place, a royal misfortune, a
European misfortune; I attach myself to it. If we can succeed in saving
the king it will be good; if we die for him it will be grand."

"So you know beforehand you must perish!" said D'Artagnan.

"We fear so, and our only regret is to die so far from both of you."

"What will you do in a foreign land, an enemy's country?"

"I traveled in England when I was young, I speak English like an
Englishman, and Aramis, too, knows something of the language. Ah! if we
had you, my friends! With you, D'Artagnan, with you, Porthos