Page:The Man in the Iron Mask.djvu/442

428 But this officer was mistaken. D'Artagnan in the last four years had lived twelve years. Age imprinted its pitiless claws at each angle of his eyes; his brow was bald; his hands, formerly brown and nervous, were getting white as if the blood began to chill there.

D'Artagnan accosted the officers with the shade of affability which distinguishes superior men, and received in return for his courtesy two most respectful bows.

"Ah! what a lucky chance to see you here. Monsieur d'Artagnan!" cried the falconer.

"It is rather I who should say that, messieurs," replied the captain, "for nowadays the king makes more frequent use of his musketeers than of his falcons."

"Ah! it is not as it was in the good old times," sighed the falconer. "Do you remember. Monsieur d'Artagnan, when the late king flew the pie in the vineyards beyond Beaugence? Ah! dame! you were not captain of the musketeers at that time. Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"And you were nothing but under-corporal of the tiercelets," replied D'Artagnan, laughing. "Never mind that, it was a good time, seeing that it is always a good time when we are young. Good-day, Monsieur the Captain of the Harriers."

"You do me honor. Monsieur le Comte," said the latter. D'Artagnan made no reply. The title of comte had not struck him; D'Artagnan had been a comte four years.

"Are you not very much fatigued with the long journey you have had. Monsieur le Capitaine?" continued the falconer. "It must be full two hundred leagues from hence to Pignerol."

"Two hundred and sixty to go, and as many to come back," said D'Artagnan quietly.

"And," said the falconer, "is he well?"

"Who?" asked D'Artagnan.

"Why, poor Monsieur Fouquet," continued the falconer, still in a low voice.

The captain of the harriers had prudently withdrawn.

"No," replied D'Artagnan, "the poor man frets terribly; he cannot comprehend how imprisonment can be a favor; he says that the parliament had absolved him by banishing him, and that banishment is liberty. He cannot imagine that they had sworn his death, and that to save his life from the claws of the parliament was to have too much obligation to God."

"Ah! yes; the poor man had a near chance of the scaf-