The four friends exchanged glances. The words that Parry had read assured them that their presence was understood by the king and was assigned to its real motive. D’Artagnan’s eyes sparkled with joy.
“You asked me just now if I was in funds,” said D’Artagnan, placing some twenty pistoles upon the table. “Well, in my turn I advise you to keep a sharp lookout on your treasure, my dear Monsieur Groslow, for I can tell you we shall not leave this without robbing you of it.”
“Not without my defending it,” said Groslow.
“So much the better,” said D’Artagnan. “Fight, my dear captain, fight. You know or you don’t know, that that is what we ask of you.”
“Oh! yes,” said Groslow, bursting with his usual coarse laugh, “I know you Frenchmen want nothing but cuts and bruises.”
Charles had heard and understood it all. A slight color mounted to his cheeks. The soldiers then saw him stretch his limbs, little by little, and under the pretense of much heat throw off the Scotch plaid which covered him.
Athos and Aramis started with delight to find that the king was lying with his clothes on.
The game began. The luck had turned, and Groslow, having won some hundred pistoles, was in the merriest possible humor.
Porthos, who had lost the fifty pistoles he had won the night before and thirty more besides, was very cross and questioned D’Artagnan with a nudge of the knee as to whether it would not soon be time to change the game. Athos and Aramis looked at him inquiringly. But D’Artagnan remained impassible.
It struck ten. They heard the guard going its rounds.