Chapter 32

Chapter XXXII
Captive and Jailers
When they had entered the fort, and while the governor was making some preparations for the reception of his guests, “Come,” said Athos, “let us have a word of explanation while we are alone.”

“It is simply this,” replied the musketeer. “I have conducted hither a prisoner, who the King commands shall not be seen. You came here; he has thrown something to you through the lattice of his window. I was at dinner with the governor; I saw the object thrown, and I saw Raoul pick it up. It does not take long to understand this. I understood it; and I thought you in intelligence with my prisoner. And then-”

“And then- you commanded us to be shot.”

“Ma foi! I admit it; but if I was the first to seize a musket, fortunately I was the last to take aim at you.”

“If you had killed me, d’Artagnan, I should have had the good fortune to die for the royal house of France; and it would be an honor to die by your hand,- you, its noblest and most loyal defender.”

“What the devil, Athos, do you mean by the royal house?” stammered d’Artagnan. “You don’t mean that you, a well-informed and sensible man, can place any faith in the nonsense written by an idiot?”

“I do believe in it.”

“With the more reason, my dear chevalier, for your having orders to kill all those who do believe in it,” said Raoul.

“That is because,” replied the captain of the Musketeers,- “because every calumny, however absurd it may be, has the almost certain chance of becoming popular.”

“No, d’Artagnan,” replied Athos, in a low tone; “but because the King is not willing that the secret of his family should transpire among the people, and cover with shame the executioners of the son of Louis XIII.”

“Do not talk in such a childish manner, Athos, or I shall begin to think you have lost your senses. Besides, explain to me how it is possible Louis XIII should have a son in the Isle of Ste. Marguerite?”

“A son whom you have brought hither masked, in a fishing-boat,” said Athos. “Why not?”

D’Artagnan was brought to a pause. “Ah, ah!” said he; “whence do you know that a fishing-boat-”

“Brought you to Ste. Marguerite with the carriage-case containing the prisoner,- with a prisoner whom you styled Monseigneur. Oh, I am acquainted with all that,” resumed the count. D’Artagnan bit his mustache.

“If it were true,” said he, “that I had brought hither in a boat and with a carriage a masked prisoner, nothing proves that this prisoner must be a Prince,- a Prince of the