recaptured, because we were without clothes to disguise
ourselves and arms to defend ourselves.”
“That is true; we should need clothes and arms.”
“Well,” said D’Artagnan, rising, “we have them, friend
Porthos, and even something better.”
“Bah!” said Porthos, looking around.
“Useless to look; everything will come to us when wanted. At
about what time did we see the two Swiss guards walking
yesterday?”
“An hour after sunset.”
“If they go out to-day as they did yesterday we shall have
the honor, then, of seeing them in half an hour?”
“In a quarter of an hour at most.”
“Your arm is still strong enough, is it not, Porthos?”
Porthos unbuttoned his sleeve, raised his shirt and looked
complacently on his strong arm, as large as the leg of any
ordinary man.
“Yes, indeed,” said he, “I believe so.”
Page 564
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“So that you could without trouble convert these tongs into
a hoop and yonder shovel into a corkscrew?”
“Certainly.” And the giant took up these two articles, and
without any apparent effort produced in them the
metamorphoses suggested by his companion.
“There!” he cried.
“Capital!” exclaimed the Gascon. “Really, Porthos, you are a
gifted individual!”
“I have heard speak,” said Porthos, “of a certain Milo of
Crotona, who performed wonderful feats, such as binding his
forehead with a cord and bursting it — of killing an ox
with a blow of his fist and carrying it home on his
shoulders, et cetera. I used to learn all these feat by
heart yonder, down at Pierrefonds, and I have done all that
he did except breaking a cord by the corrugation of my
temples.”
“Because your strength is not in your head, Porthos,” said
his friend.
“No; it is in my arms and shoulders,” answered Porthos with
gratified naivete.
“Well, my dear friend, let us approach the window and there
you can match your strength against that of an iron bar.”
Porthos went to the window, took a bar in his hands, clung
to it and bent it like a bow; so that the two ends came out
of the sockets of stone in which for thirty years they had
been fixed.
“Well! friend, the cardinal, although such a genius, could
never have done that.”
“Shall I take out any more of them?” asked Porthos.
“No; that is sufficient; a man can pass through that.”
Porthos tried, and passed the upper portion of his body
through.
“Yes,” he said.
“Now pass your arm through this opening.”
“Why?”
“You will know presently — pass it.”
Porthos obeyed with military promptness and passed his arm
through the opening.
“Admirable!” said D’Artagnan.
“The scheme goes forward, it seems.”
“On wheels, dear friend.”
“Good! What shall I do now?”
Page 565
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“Nothing.”
“It is finished, then?”
“No, not yet.”
“I should like to understand,” said Porthos.
“Listen, my dear friend; in two words you will know all. The
door of the guardhouse opens, as you see.”
“Yes, I see.”
“They are about to send into our court, which Monsieur de
Mazarin crosses on his way to the orangery, the two guards
who attend him.”
“There they are, coming out.”
“If only they close the guardhouse door! Good! They close
it.”
“What, then?”
“Silence! They may hear us.”
“I don’t understand it at all.”
“As you execute you will understand.”
“And yet I should have preferred —- ”
“You will have the pleasure of the surprise.”
“Ah, that is true.”
“Hush!”
Porthos remained silent and motionless.
In fact, the two soldiers advanced on the side where the
window was, rubbing their hands, for it was cold, it being
the month of February.
At this moment the door of the guardhouse was opened and one
of the soldiers was summoned away.
“Now,” said D’Artagnan, “I am going to call this soldier and
talk to him. Don’t lose a word of what I’m going to say to
you, Porthos. Everything lies in the execution.”
“Good, the execution of plots is my forte.”
“I know it well. I depend on you. Look, I shall turn to the
left, so that the soldier will be at your right, as soon as
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