“Help me, gentlemen,” cried D’Artagnan, “we must break in this door.”
“It is the devil in person!” said Aramis, hastening forward.
“He escapes us,” growled Porthos, pushing his huge shoulder against the hinges, but in vain. “‘Sblood! he escapes us.”
“So much the better,” muttered Athos.
“I thought as much,” said D’Artagnan, wasting his strength in useless efforts. “Zounds, I thought as much when the wretch kept moving around the room. I thought he was up to something.”
“It’s a misfortune, to which his friend, the devil, treats us,” said Aramis.
“It’s a piece of good fortune sent from Heaven,” said Athos, evidently much relieved.
“Really!” said D’Artagnan, abandoning the attempt to burst open the panel after several ineffectual attempts, “Athos, I cannot imagine how you can talk to us in that way. You cannot understand the position we are in. In this kind of game, not to kill is to let one’s self be killed. This fox of a fellow will be sending us a hundred iron-sided beasts who will pick us off like sparrows in this place. Come, come, we must be off. If we stay here five minutes more there’s an end of us.”
“Yes, you are right.”
“But where shall we go?” asked Porthos.