should do so more carefully still with twenty. Twenty —
that is a round number; that, besides, reduces the number of
the horses by ten, which is a consideration; and then, with
a good lieutenant — Mordioux! what things patience and
calculation are! Was I not going to embark with forty men,
and I have now reduced them to twenty for an equal success?
Ten thousand livres saved at one stroke, and more safety;
that is well! Now, then, let us see; we have nothing to do
but to find this lieutenant — let him be found, then; and
after — That is not so easy; he must be brave and good, a
second myself. Yes, but a lieutenant must have my secret,
and as that secret is worth a million, and I shall only pay
my man a thousand livres, fifteen hundred at the most, my
man will sell the secret to Monk. Mordioux! no lieutenant.
Besides, this man, were he as mute as a disciple of
Pythagoras, — this man would be sure to have in the troop
some favourite soldier, whom he would make his sergeant, the
sergeant would penetrate the secret of the lieutenant, in
case the latter should be honest and unwilling to sell it.
Then the sergeant, less honest and less ambitious, will give
up the whole for fifty thousand livres. Come, come! that is
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impossible. The lieutenant is impossible. But then I must
have no fractions; I cannot divide my troop into two, and
act upon two points, at once, without another self, who —
But what is the use of acting upon two points, as we have
only one man to take? What can be the good of weakening a
corps by placing the right here, and the left there? A
single corps — Mordioux! a single one, and that commanded
by D’Artagnan. Very well. But twenty men marching in one
band are suspected by everybody; twenty horsemen must not be
seen marching together, or a company will be detached
against them and the password will be required; the which
company, upon seeing them embarrassed to give it, would
shoot M. d’Artagnan and his men like so many rabbits. I
reduce myself then to ten men; in this fashion I shall act
simply and with unity; I shall be forced to be prudent,
which is half the success in an affair of the kind I am
undertaking; a greater number might, perhaps, have drawn me
into some folly. Ten horses are not many, either to buy or
take. A capital idea; what tranquillity it infuses into my
mind! no more suspicions — no passwords — no more dangers!
Ten men, they are valets or clerks. Ten men, leading ten
horses laden with merchandise of whatever kind, are
tolerated, well received everywhere. Ten men travel on
account of the house of Planchet & Co., of France — nothing
can be said against that. These ten men, clothed like
manufacturers, have a good cutlass or a good musket at their
saddle-bow, and a good pistol in the holster. They never
allow themselves to be uneasy, because they have no evil
designs. They are, perhaps, in truth, a little disposed to
be smugglers, but what harm is in that? Smuggling is not,
like polygamy, a hanging offense. The worst that can happen
to us is the confiscation of our merchandise. Our
merchandise confiscated — fine affair that! Come, come! it
is a superb plan. Ten men only — ten men, whom I will
engage for my service; ten men who shall be as resolute as
forty, who would cost me four times as much, and to whom,
for greater security, I will never open my mouth as to my
designs, and to whom I shall only say, `My friends, there is
a blow to be struck.’ Things being after this fashion, Satan
will be very malicious if he plays me one of his tricks.
Fifteen thousand livres saved — that’s superb — out of
twenty!”
Thus fortified by his laborious calculations, D’Artagnan
stopped at this plan, and determined to change nothing in
it. He had already on a list furnished by his inexhaustible