The friends embraced. They descended into the plain by the ladder. Planchet met them hard by the shed. D’Artagnan jumped into the saddle, then the old companions in arms again shook hands. D’Artagnan and Planchet spurred their steeds and took the road to Paris.
But after he had gone about two hundred steps D’Artagnan stopped short, alighted, threw the bridle of his horse over the arm of Planchet and took the pistols from his saddle-bow to fasten them to his girdle.
“What’s the matter?” asked Planchet.
“This is the matter: be he ever so cunning he shall never say I was his dupe. Stand here, don’t stir, turn your back to the road and wait for me.”
Having thus spoken, D’Artagnan cleared the ditch by the roadside and crossed the plain so as to wind around the village. He had observed between the house that Madame de Longueville inhabited and the convent of the Jesuits, an open space surrounded by a hedge.
The moon had now risen and he could see well enough to retrace his road.
He reached the hedge and hid himself behind it; in passing by the house where the scene which we have related took place, he remarked that the window was again lighted up and he was convinced that Aramis had not yet returned to his own apartment and that when he did it would not be alone.
In truth, in a few minutes he heard steps approaching and low whispers.
Close to the hedge the steps stopped.
D’Artagnan knelt down near the thickest part of the hedge.