nes, you say?"

"To a certainty."

"To see Aramis?"

"Yes."

"Well! I came from Paris on purpose to see Aramis."

"That's true."

"I will go with you then."

"Do; that's the thing."

"Only, I ought to have seen Aramis first, and you after. But man
proposes, and God disposes. I have begun with you, and will finish with
Aramis."

"Very well!"

"And in how many hours can you go from here to Vannes?"

"Oh! _pardieu!_ in six hours. Three hours by sea to Sarzeau, three hours
by road from Sarzeau to Vannes."

"How convenient that is! Being so near to the bishopric; do you often go
to Vannes?"

"Yes; once a week. But, stop till I get my plan."

Porthos picked up his plan, folded it carefully, and engulfed it in his
large pocket.

"Good!" said D'Artagnan aside; "I think I now know the real engineer who
is fortifying Belle-Isle."

Two hours after, at high tide, Porthos and D'Artagnan set out for
Sarzeau.

Chapter LXXI. A Procession at Vannes.

The passage from Belle-Isle to Sarzeau was made rapidly enough, thanks
to one of those little corsairs of which D'Artagnan had been told during
his voyage, and which, shaped for fast sailing and destined for the
chase, were sheltered at that time in the roadstead of Locmaria, where
one of them, with a quarter of its war-crew, performed duty between
Belle-Isle and the continent. D'Artagnan had an opportunity of
convincing himself that Porthos, though engineer and topographer, was
not deeply versed in affairs of state. His perfect ignorance, with any
other, might have passed for well-informed dissimulation. But D'Artagnan
knew too well all the folds and refolds of his Porthos, not to find
a secret if there were one there; like those regular, minute old
bachelors, who know how to find, with their eyes shut, each book on the
shelves of their library and each piece of linen in their wardrobe.
So if he had found nothing, our cunning D'Artagnan, in rolling and
unrolling his Porthos, it was because, in truth, there was nothing to be
found.

"Be it so," said D'Artagnan; "I shall get to know more at Vannes in half
an hour than Porthos has discovered at Belle-Isle in two months. Only,
in order that I may know something, it is important that Porthos should
not make use of the only stratagem I leave at his disposal. He must not
warn Aramis of my arrival." All the care of the musketeer was then, for
the moment, confined to the watching of Porthos. And let us hasten to
say