“Had Monsieur Tree offered me anything to drink——” said D’Artagnan thoughtfully.
But at the same moment Grimaud pulled at the sleeve of Athos, and said a few hasty words in the deaf and dumb alphabet of the fingers.
“We are surrounded,” said Athos quietly. “Fifty policemen stand between us and safety.”
“Porthos!” shouted all the others.
“Monsieur Porthos!” cried Mousqueton and Grimaud.
The giant drained a third bottle, then, shaking hands with his impersonator, returned to the stage.
“Forward!” cried D’Artagnan.
An illumination, in some respects resembling summer lightning, flashed along their blades, and police constables fell before them, mowed down like the grass of the field.
A groan of despair rattled in the dying throats of 29 B, 44 D, 83 X, 221 Z, and 339 T. Porthos had spitted them like a row of larks on a skewer!
The stage-door keeper was the last to fall. Behind them the roar of a maddened audience, deprived of half its money’s worth, sounded like the cry of fiends.