“Come, now, Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “you must be taking me for some one else.”
“Nevertheless,” said Athos, “in your absence——”
“Well, in my absence haven’t I put in my place Grimaud and the Scotchman? Before he had taken ten steps beyond the door I had examined the house on all sides. At one of the doors, that by which he had entered, I placed our Scotchman, making a sign to him to follow the man wherever he might go, if he came out again. Then going around the house I placed Grimaud at the other exit, and here I am. Our game is beaten up. Now for the tally-ho.”
Athos threw himself into D’Artagnan’s arms.
“Friend,” he said, “you have been too good in pardoning me; I was wrong, a hundred times wrong. I ought to have known you better by this time; but we are all possessed of a malignant spirit, which bids us doubt.”
“Humph!” said Porthos. “Don’t you think the executioner might be Master Cromwell, who, to make sure of this affair, undertook it himself?”
“Ah! just so. Cromwell is stout and short, and this man thin and lanky, rather tall than otherwise.”
“Some condemned soldier, perhaps,” suggested Athos, “whom they have pardoned at the price of regicide.”
“No, no,” continued D’Artagnan, “it was not the measured step of a foot soldier, nor was it the gait of a horseman. If I am not mistaken we have to do with a gentleman.”
“A gentleman!” exclaimed Athos. “Impossible! It would be a dishonor to all the nobility.”