"'Now, gentlemen,' said D'Artagnan, 'if you will be pleased to return to your apartment, in ten minutes you shall have what you require.'
"The Englishmen bowed and retired.
"'I am alone, my dear Athos,' said D'Artagnan.—'Open the door.'
"There was a great noise of fagots and beams falling down; the besieged was demolishing his counter-scarps and bastions. The next moment the door opened, and the pale face of the mousquetaire appeared. D'Artagnan sprang forward and embraced him, but when he tried to lead him out of the cellar, he perceived that Athos staggered.
"'You are wounded?' cried he.
"'I! not the least,' was the reply. 'I am dead drunk, that is all, and never did any man better deserve to be so. Fore God! mine host, I have drunk for my share, at least one hundred and fifty bottles.'
"'Heaven have mercy on me!' cried the host. 'If the servant has drunk half as much as the master, I am a ruined man.'
"'Grimaud knows his place too well to drink the same wine as his master; he has drunk from the cask. By-the-by, I think he must have forgotten to put in the spigot—I hear a running.'
"D'Artagnan burst into a fit of laughter. The innkeeper was in a high fever. Just then Grimaud showed himself behind his master, his carbine on his shoulder, and his head shaking like that of the drunken satyr in some of Rubens' pictures. His clothes were smeared with an unctuous liquid, which the host immediately recognized as his best olive oil.
"D'Artagnan and Athos now crossed the common room, and installed themselves in the best apartment of the hotel; while the innkeeper and his wife lighted lamps, and rushed into the cellar, where a frightful spectacle awaited them. In rear of the fortifications, in which Athos had made a breach for his exit, and which were composed of fagots, planks, and empty casks, arranged according to all the rules of strategy, were numerous pools of oil and wine, in which the bones of the hams that had been eaten were lying. In one corner was a pile of broken bottles, and in another a huge cask of wine was just yielding up the last drops of its blood. Out of fifty large sausages that had been suspended to the beams of the roof, ten only were remaining. The image of devastation and death, as the ancient poet said, reigned there as upon a field of battle."