“Good heavens!” said Allegrignac; “are we going to equip all the nation for war? Look, Porc-en-Truie! the Count of Riom has stripped the armouries of his ten castles.”
“I wouldn’t stir an inch,” said Porc-en-Truie, in the interval of a couple of yawns, “to assure myself that Maragougnia has done something silly. If you assured me to the contrary, I might perhaps be surprised into getting up to see. And yet no! I couldn’t believe it; so I should stay where I was.”
Porc-en-Truie, I must observe, sat himself down on the grass the moment he arrived.
“You’re quite welcome to laugh at my prudence,” said Maragougnia, “but I don’t forget we are going to certain death.”
“Certain death! Fiddlesticks! I mean yet to rival the Methusalems of the period,” said Porc-en-Truie, rising. “And now let’s be off, if we are to reach Alagon to-night.”
“To prepare for death,” said Maragougnia, dashing away a tear with his gauntlet.
“To go to sleep,” said Porc-en-Truie, with a yawn.
“To try a throw with the dice,” said Allegrignac, jingling the money in his purse.
“To make a good supper,” said Mont-Rognon, with a hollow voice, gnashing his teeth like castanets.
In ten minutes the four knights had entered the wood. At sunset Alleericmac was hammering with his fist at the door of the Fonda del Caïman.