“No,” said Aramis, “they will doubtless treat us like the prisoners of the Philipghauts.”
“And how were they treated?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Why,” said Aramis, “one-half were hanged and the other half were shot.”
“Well, I,” said D’Artagnan “I answer that while there remains a drop of blood in my veins you will be neither hanged nor shot. Sang Diou! let them come on! Besides—do you see that door, Athos?”
“Yes; what then?”
“Well, you can go out by that door whenever you please; for from this moment you are free as the air.”
“I recognize you there, my brave D’Artagnan,” replied Athos; “but you are no longer our masters. That door is guarded, D’Artagnan; you know that.”
“Very well, you will force it,” said Porthos. “There are only a dozen men at the most.”
“That would be nothing for us four; it is too much for us two. No, divided as we now are, we must perish. See the fatal example: on the Vendomois road, D’Artagnan, you so brave, and you, Porthos, so valiant and so strong—you were beaten; to-day Aramis and I are beaten in our turn. Now that never happened to us when we were four together. Let us die, then, as De Winter has died; as for me, I will fly only on condition that we all fly together.”
“Impossible,” said D’Artagnan; “we are under Mazarin’s orders.”