But at the moment Mousqueton came to announce that the horses were ready, and they were arising from table, the stranger proposed to Porthos to drink the health of the cardinal.  Porthos replied that he asked no better if the stranger, in his turn, would drink the health of the king.  The stranger cried that he acknowledged no other king but his Eminence.  Porthos called him drunk, and the stranger drew his sword.

“You have committed a piece of folly,” said Athos, “but it can’t be helped; there is no drawing back.  Kill the fellow, and rejoin us as soon as you can.”

All three remounted their horses, and set out at a good pace, while Porthos was promising his adversary to perforate him with all the thrusts known in the fencing schools.

“There goes one!” cried Athos, at the end of five hundred paces.

“But why did that man attack Porthos rather than any other one of us?” asked Aramis.

“Because, as Porthos was talking louder than the rest of us, he took him for the chief,” said d’Artagnan.

“I always said that this cadet from Gascony was a well of wisdom,” murmured Athos; and the travelers continued their route.

At Beauvais they stopped two hours, as well to breathe their horses a little as to wait for Porthos.  At the end of two hours, as Porthos did not come, not any news of him, they resumed their journey.

At a league from Beauvais, where the road was confined between two high banks, they fell in with eight or ten men who, taking advantage of the road being unpaved in this spot, appeared to be employed in digging holes and filling up the ruts with mud.

Aramis, not liking to soil his boots with this artificial mortar, apostrophized them rather sharply.  Athos wished to restrain him, but it was too late.  The laborers began to jeer the travelers and by their insolence disturbed the equanimity even of the cool Athos, who urged on his horse against one of them.

Then each of these men retreated as far as the ditch, from which each took a concealed musket; the result was that our seven travelers were outnumbered in weapons.  Aramis received a ball which passed through his shoulder, and Mousqueton another ball which lodged in the fleshy part which prolongs the lower portion of the loins.  Therefore Mousqueton alone fell from his horse, not because he was severely wounded, but not being able to see the wound, he judged it to be more serious than it really was.

“It was an ambuscade!” shouted d’Artagnan.  “Don’t waste a charge!  Forward!”

Aramis, wounded as he was, seized the mane of his horse, which carried him on with the others.  Mousqueton’s horse rejoined them, and galloped by the side of his companions.

“That will serve us for a relay,” said Athos.

“I would rather have had a hat,” said d’Artagnan.  “Mine was carried away by a ball.  By my faith, it is very fortunate that the letter was not in it.”