ord?" asked Athos.

"That is agreed upon, monsieur, and with much pleasure."

Monk held out his hand to Athos.

"Ah! my lord, if you would!" murmured Athos.

"Hush! monsieur, it is agreed that we shall speak no more of that." And
bowing to Athos, he went up the stairs, meeting about half-way his men,
who were coming down. He had not gone twenty paces, when a faint but
prolonged whistle was heard at a distance. Monk listened, but seeing
nothing and hearing nothing, he continued his route. Then he remembered
the fisherman, and looked about for him; but the fisherman had
disappeared. If he had, however, looked with more attention, he might
have seen that man, bent double, gliding like a serpent along the stones
and losing himself in the mist that floated over the surface of the
marsh. He might equally have seen, had he attempted to pierce that mist,
a spectacle that might have attracted his attention; and that was the
rigging of the vessel, which had changed place, and was now nearer the
shore. But Monk saw nothing; and thinking he had nothing to fear, he
entered the deserted causeway which led to his camp. It was then that
the disappearance of the fisherman appeared strange, and that a real
suspicion began to take possession of his mind. He had just placed at
the orders of Athos the only post that could protect him. He had a
mile of causeway to traverse before he could regain his camp. The fog
increased with such intensity that he could scarcely distinguish objects
at ten paces' distance. Monk then thought he heard the sound of an oar
over the marsh on the right. "Who goes there?" said he.

But nobody answered; then he cocked his pistol, took his sword in his
hand, and quickened his pace, without, however, being willing to call
anybody. Such a summons, for which there was no absolute necessity,
appeared unworthy of him.

Chapter XXVII. The Next Day.

It was seven o'clock in the morning, the first rays of day lightened the
pools of the marsh, in which the sun was reflected like a red ball, when
Athos, awakening and opening the window of his bed-chamber, which looked
out upon the banks of the river, perceived, at fifteen paces' distance
from him, the sergeant and the men who had accompanied him the evening
before, and who, after having deposited the casks at his house, had
returned to the camp by the causeway on the right.

Why had these men come back after having returned to the camp? That was
the question whi