more sleep.
“Thirty hours’ riding,” said Aramis, firmly. “You know there
are good relays.”
Porthos pushed out one leg, allowing a groan to escape him.
“Come, come! my friend,” insisted the prelate with a sort of
impatience.
Porthos drew the other leg out of the bed. “And is it
absolutely necessary that I should go, at once?”
“Urgently necessary.”
Porthos got upon his feet, and began to shake both walls and
floors with his steps of a marble statue.
“Hush! hush! for the love of Heaven, my dear Porthos!” said
Aramis, “you will wake somebody.”
“Ah! that’s true,” replied Porthos, in a voice of thunder,
“I forgot that; but be satisfied, I am on guard.” And so
saying, he let fall a belt loaded with his sword and
pistols, and a purse, from which the crowns escaped with a
vibrating and prolonged noise. This noise made the blood of
Aramis boil, whilst it drew from Porthos a formidable burst
of laughter. “How droll that is!” said he, in the same
voice.
“Not so loud, Porthos, not so loud.”
“True, true!” and he lowered his voice a half-note.
“I was going to say,” continued Porthos, “that it is droll
that we are never so slow as when we are in a hurry, and
never make so much noise as when we wish to be silent.”
“Yes, that is true, but let us give the proverb the lie,
Page 425
Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
Porthos; let us make haste, and hold our tongue.”
“You see I am doing my best,” said Porthos, putting on his
haut de chausses.
“Very well.”
“This is something in haste?”
“It is more than that, it is serious, Porthos.”
“Oh, oh!”
“D’Artagnan has questioned you, has he not?”
“Questioned me?”
“Yes, at Belle-Isle?”
“Not the least in the world.”
“Are you sure of that, Porthos?”
“Parbleu!”
“It is impossible. Recollect yourself.”
“He asked me what I was doing, and I told him studying
topography. I would have made use of another word which you
employed one day.”
“`Castrametation’?”
“Yes, that’s it, but I never could recollect it.”
“All the better. What more did he ask you?”
“Who M. Getard was.”
“Next?”
“Who M. Jupenet was.”
“He did not happen to see our plan of fortifications, did
he?”
“Yes.”
“The devil he did!”
“But don’t be alarmed, I had rubbed out your writing with
India-rubber. It was impossible for him to suppose you had
given me any advice in those works.”
“Ay, but our friend has phenomenally keen eyes.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I fear that everything is discovered, Porthos; the matter
is, then, to prevent a great misfortune. I have given orders
to my people to close all the gates and doors. D’Artagnan
will not be able to get out before daybreak. Your horse is
ready saddled; you will gain the first relay; by five
o’clock in the morning you will have traversed fifteen
Page 426
Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
leagues. Come!”
Aramis then assisted Porthos to dress, piece by piece, with
as much celerity as the most skillful valet de chambre could
have done. Porthos, half stupefied, let him do as he liked,
and confounded himself in excuses. When he was ready, Aramis
took him by the hand, and led him, making him place his foot
with precaution on every step of the stairs, preventing him
running against doorframes, turning him this way and that,
as if Aramis had been the giant, and Porthos the dwarf. Soul
set fire to and animated matter. A horse was waiting, ready
saddled, in the courtyard. Porthos mounted. Then Aramis
himself took the horse by the bridle, and led him over some
dung spread in the yard, with the evident intention of
suppressing noise. He, at the same time, held tight the
horse’s nose, to prevent him neighing. When arrived at the
outward gate, drawing Porthos towards him, who was going off
without even asking him what for: “Now friend Porthos, now;
without drawing bridle, till you get to Paris,” whispered he
in his ears; “eat on horseback, drink on horseback, sleep on
horseback, but lose not a minute.”
“That’s enough, I will not stop.”
“This letter to M. Fouquet; cost what it may, he must have