—­ each one was occupied with his self-preservation.  All was over; carriages, horses, guards, and perhaps even the prisoner were about to be torn to shreds, when all at once a voice well known to Raoul was heard, and suddenly a great sword glittered in the air; at the same time the crowd opened, upset, trodden down, and an officer of the musketeers, striking and cutting right and left, rushed up to Raoul and took him in his arms just as he was about to fall.

“God’s blood!” cried the officer, “have they killed him?  Woe to them if it be so!”

And he turned around, so stern with anger, strength and threat, that the most excited rebels hustled back on one another, in order to escape, and some of them even rolled into the Seine.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” murmured Raoul.

“Yes, ’sdeath! in person, and fortunately it seems for you, my young friend.  Come on, here, you others,” he continued, rising in his stirrups, raising his sword, and addressing those musketeers who had not been able to follow his rapid onslaught.  “Come, sweep away all that for me!  Shoulder muskets!  Present arms!  Aim ——­ "

At this command the mountain of populace thinned so suddenly that D’Artagnan could not repress a burst of Homeric laughter.

“Thank you, D’Artagnan,” said Comminges, showing half of his body through the window of the broken vehicle, “thanks, my young friend; your name —­ that I may mention it to the queen.”

Raoul was about to reply when D’Artagnan bent down to his ear.

“Hold your tongue,” said he, “and let me answer.  Do not lose time, Comminges,” he continued; “get out of the carriage if you can and make another draw up; be quick, or in five minutes the mob will be on us again with swords and muskets and you will be killed.  Hold! there’s a carriage coming over yonder.”

Then bending again to Raoul, he whispered:  “Above all things do not divulge your name.”

“That’s right.  I will go,” said Comminges; “and if they come back, fire!”

“Not at all —­ not at all,” replied D’Artagnan; “let no one move.  On the contrary, one shot at this moment would be paid for dearly to-morrow.”

Comminges took his four guards and as many musketeers and ran to the carriage, from which he made the people inside dismount, and brought them to the vehicle which had upset.  But when it was necessary to convey the prisoner from one carriage to the other, the people, catching sight of him whom they called their liberator, uttered every imaginable cry and knotted themselves once more around the vehicle.

“Start, start!” said D’Artagnan.  “There are ten men to accompany you.  I will keep twenty to hold in check the mob; go, and lose not a moment.  Ten men for Monsieur de Comminges.”

As the carriage started off the cries were redoubled and more than ten thousand people thronged the Quai and overflowed the Pont Neuf and adjacent streets.  A few shots were fired and one musketeer was wounded.