"Silence! I tell you!—silence! If he only believes you can read; if he only suspects you have understood; I love you, my dear friends, I will be killed for you. But—"
"But—" said Athos and Raoul.
"But, I could not save you from perpetual imprisonment, if I saved you from death. Silence, then! Silence again!"
The governor came up, having crossed the ditch upon a plank bridge.
"Well!" said he to D'Artagnan, "what stops us?"
"You are Spaniards—you do not understand a word of French," said the captain, eagerly, to his friends in a low voice.
"Well!" replied he, addressing the governor, "I was right; these gentlemen are two Spanish captains with whom I was acquainted at Ypres, last year; they don't know a word of French."
"Ah!" said the governor, sharply. "And yet they were trying to read the inscription on the plate."
D'Artagnan took it out of his hands, effacing the characters with the point of his sword.
"How!" cried the governor—"what are you doing? I cannot read them now!"