“Aramis!  Porthos!” cried Athos, and laughed aloud.

“What is it?” asked d’Artagnan, who did not at all comprehend the hilarity of his friend.

“Nothing, nothing!  Go on!”

“Your advice, then?”

“To take the hundred pistoles, d’Artagnan.  With the hundred pistoles we can live well to the end of the month.  We have undergone a great deal of fatigue, remember, and a little rest will do no harm.”

“I rest?  Oh, no, Athos.  Once in Paris, I shall prosecute my search for that unfortunate woman!”

“Well, you may be assured that your horse will not be half so serviceable to you for that purpose as good golden louis.  Take the hundred pistoles, my friend; take the hundred pistoles!”

D’Artagnan only required one reason to be satisfied.  This last reason appeared convincing.  Besides, he feared that by resisting longer he should appear selfish in the eyes of Athos.  He acquiesced, therefore, and chose the hundred pistoles, which the Englishman paid down on the spot.

They then determined to depart.  Peace with the landlord, in addition to Athos’s old horse, cost six pistoles.  D’Artagnan and Athos took the nags of Planchet and Grimaud, and the two lackeys started on foot, carrying the saddles on their heads.

However ill our two friends were mounted, they were soon far in advance of their servants, and arrived at Creveccoeur.  From a distance they perceived Aramis, seated in a melancholy manner at his window, looking out, like Sister Anne, at the dust in the horizon.

“HOLA, Aramis!  What the devil are you doing there?” cried the two friends.

“Ah, is that you, d’Artagnan, and you, Athos?” said the young man.  “I was reflecting upon the rapidity with which the blessings of this world leave us.  My English horse, which has just disappeared amid a cloud of dust, has furnished me with a living image of the fragility of the things of the earth.  Life itself may be resolved into three words:  ERAT, EST, FUIT.”

“Which means—­” said d’Artagnan, who began to suspect the truth.

“Which means that I have just been duped-sixty louis for a horse which by the manner of his gait can do at least five leagues an hour.”

D’Artagnan and Athos laughed aloud.

“My dear d’Artagnan,” said Aramis, “don’t be too angry with me, I beg.  Necessity has no law; besides, I am the person punished, as that rascally horsedealer has robbed me of fifty louis, at least.  Ah, you fellows are good managers!  You ride on our lackey’s horses, and have your own gallant steeds led along carefully by hand, at short stages.”

At the same instant a market cart, which some minutes before had appeared upon the Amiens road, pulled up at the inn, and Planchet and Grimaud came out of it with the saddles on their heads.  The cart was returning empty to Paris, and the two lackeys had agreed, for their transport, to slake the wagoner’s thirst along the route.