“Gascon-headed man, will you have done?” said the king.

“Sire,” replied Treville, without lowering his voice in the least, “either order my Musketeer to be restored to me, or let him be tried.”

“He shall be tried,” said the cardinal.

“Well, so much the better; for in that case I shall demand of his Majesty permission to plead for him.”

The king feared an outbreak.

“If his Eminence,” said he, “did not have personal motives—­”

The cardinal saw what the king was about to say and interrupted him: 

“Pardon me,” said he; “but the instant your Majesty considers me a prejudiced judge, I withdraw.”

“Come,” said the king, “will you swear, by my father, that Athos was at your residence during the event and that he took no part in it?”

“By your glorious father, and by yourself, whom I love and venerate above all the world, I swear it.”

“Be so kind as to reflect, sire,” said the cardinal.  “If we release the prisoner thus, we shall never know the truth.”

“Athos may always be found,” replied Treville, “ready to answer, when it shall please the gownsmen to interrogate him.  He will not desert, Monsieur the Cardinal, be assured of that; I will answer for him.”

“No, he will not desert,” said the king; “he can always be found, as Treville says.  Besides,” added he, lowering his voice and looking with a suppliant air at the cardinal, “let us give them apparent security; that is policy.”

This policy of Louis XIII made Richelieu smile.

“Order it as you please, sire; you possess the right of pardon.”

“The right of pardoning only applies to the guilty,” said Treville, who was determined to have the last word, “and my Musketeer is innocent.  It is not mercy, then, that you are about to accord, sire, it is justice.”

“And he is in the Fort l’Eveque?” said the king.

“Yes, sire, in solitary confinement, in a dungeon, like the lowest criminal.”

“The devil!” murmured the king; “what must be done?”

“Sign an order for his release, and all will be said,” replied the cardinal.  “I believe with your Majesty that Monsieur de Treville’s guarantee is more than sufficient.”

Treville bowed very respectfully, with a joy that was not unmixed with fear; he would have preferred an obstinate resistance on the part of the cardinal to this sudden yielding.

The king signed the order for release, and Treville carried it away without delay.  As he was about to leave the presence, the cardinal gave him a friendly smile, and said, “A perfect harmony reigns, sire, between the leaders and the soldiers of your Musketeers, which must be profitable for the service and honorable to all.”

“He will play me some dog’s trick or other, and that immediately,” said Treville.  “One has never the last word with such a man.  But let us be quick—­the king may change his mind in an hour; and at all events it is more difficult to replace a man in the Fort l’Eveque or the Bastille who has got out, than to keep a prisoner there who is in.”