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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 7 at Prostate Health
head bound up in a linen cloth,
arose then, and urged by the host, began to descend the stairs;
but on arriving at the kitchen, the first thing he saw was his
antagonist talking calmly at the step of a heavy carriage, drawn
by two large Norman horses.
His interlocutor, whose head appeared through the carriage
window, was a woman of from twenty to two-and-twenty years. We
have already observed with what rapidity dArtagnan seized the
expression of a countenance. He perceived then, at a glance,
that this woman was young and beautiful; and her style of beauty
struck him more forcibly from its being totally different from
that of the southern countries in which dArtagnan had hitherto
resided. She was pale and fair, with long curls falling in
profusion over her shoulders, had large, blue, languishing eyes,
rosy lips, and hands of alabaster. She was talking with great
animation with the stranger.
"His Eminence, then, orders me--" said the lady.
"To return instantly to England, and to inform him as soon as the
duke leaves London."
"And as to my other instructions?" asked the fair traveler.
"They are contained in this box, which you will not open until
you are on the other side of the Channel."
"Very well; and you--what will you do?"
"I--I return to Paris."
"What, without chastising this insolent boy?" asked the lady.
The stranger was about to reply; but at the moment he opened his
mouth, dArtagnan, who had heard all, precipitated himself over
the threshold of the door.
"This insolent boy chastises others," cried he; "and I hope that
this time he whom he ought to chastise will not escape him as
before."
"Will not escape him?" replied the stranger, knitting his brow.
"No; before a woman you would dare not fly, I presume?"
"Remember," said Milady, seeing the stranger lay his hand on his
sword, "the least delay may ruin everything."
"You are right," cried the gentleman; "begone then, on your part,
and I will depart as quickly on mine." And bowing to the lady,
sprang into his saddle, while her coachman applied his whip
vigorously to his horses. The two interlocutors thus separated,
taking opposite directions, at full gallop.
"Pay him, booby!" cried the stranger to his servant, without
checking the speed of his horse; and the man, after throwing two
or three silver pieces at the foot of mine host, galloped after
his master.
"Base coward! false gentleman!" cried dArtagnan, springing
forward, in his turn, after the servant. But his wound had
rendered him too weak to support such an exertion. Scarcely had
he gone ten steps when his ears began to tingle, a faintness
seized him, a cloud of blood passed over his eyes, and he fell in
the middle of the street, crying still, "Coward! coward! coward!"
"He is a coward, indeed," grumbled the host, drawing near to
dArtagnan, and endeavoring by this little flattery to make up
matters with the young man, as the heron of the fable did with
the snail he had despised the evening before.
"Yes, a base coward," murmured dArtagnan; "but she--she was very
beautiful."
"What she?" demanded the host.
"Milady," faltered dArtagnan, and fainted a second time.
"Ah, its all one," said the host; "I have lost two customers,
but this one remains, of whom I am pretty certain for some days
to come. There will be eleven crowns gained."
It is to be remembered that eleven crowns was just the sum that
remained in dArtagnans purse.
The host had reckoned upon eleven days of confinement at a crown
a day, but he had reckoned without his guest. On the following
morning at five oclock dArtagnan arose, and descending to the
kitchen without help, asked, among other ingredients the list of
which has not come down to us, for some oil, some wine, and some
rosemary, and with his mothers recipe in his hand composed a
balsam, with which he anointed his numerous wounds, replacing his
bandages himself, and positively refusing the assistance of any
doctor, dArtagnan walked about that same evening, and was almost
cured by the morrow.
But when the time came to pay for his rosemary, this oil, and the
wine, the only expense the master had incurred, as he had
preserved a strict abstinence--while on the contrary, the yellow
horse, by the account of the hostler at least, had eaten three
times as much as a horse of his size could reasonably supposed to
have done--dArtagnan found nothing in his pocket but his little
old velvet purse with the eleven crowns it contained; for as to
the letter
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