“Why?” asked Blaisois.

“Simpleton!” exclaimed Mousqueton; “suppose any one came into the room.”

“Ah, true,” cried Blaisois, with evident admiration; “but it will be dark in the cellar.”

“Grimaud always sees, dark or light, night as well as day,” answered Mousqueton.

“That is lucky,” said Blaisois.  “As for me, when I have no candle I can’t take two steps without knocking against something.”

“That’s because you haven’t served,” said Mousqueton.  “Had you been in the army you would have been able to pick up a needle on the floor of a closed oven.  But hark!  I think some one is coming.”

Mousqueton made, with a low whistling sound, the sign of alarm well known to the lackeys in the days of their youth, resumed his place at the table and made a sign to Blaisois to follow his example.

Blaisois obeyed.

The door of their cabin was opened.  Two men, wrapped in their cloaks, appeared.

“Oho!” said they, “not in bed at a quarter past eleven.  That’s against all rules.  In a quarter of an hour let every one be in bed and snoring.”

These two men then went toward the compartment in which Grimaud was secreted; opened the door, entered and shut it after them.

“Ah!” cried Blaisois, “he is lost!”

“Grimaud’s a cunning fellow,” murmured Mousqueton.

They waited for ten minutes, during which time no noise was heard that might indicate that Grimaud was discovered, and at the expiration of that anxious interval the two men returned, closed the door after them, and repeating their orders that the servants should go to bed and extinguish their lights, disappeared.

“Shall we obey?” asked Blaisois.  “All this looks suspicious.”

“They said a quarter of an hour.  We still have five minutes,” replied Mousqueton.

“Suppose we warn the masters.”

“Let’s wait for Grimaud.”

“But perhaps they have killed him.”

“Grimaud would have cried out.”

“You know he is almost dumb.”

“We should have heard the blow, then.”

“But if he doesn’t return?”

“Here he is.”

At that very moment Grimaud drew back the cloak which hid the aperture and came in with his face livid, his eyes staring wide open with terror, so that the pupils were contracted almost to nothing, with a large circle of white around them.  He held in his hand a tankard full of a dark substance, and approaching the gleam of light shed by the lamp he uttered this single monosyllable:  “Oh!” with such an expression of extreme terror that Mousqueton started, alarmed, and Blaisois was near fainting from fright.

Both, however, cast an inquisitive glance into the tankard —­ it was full of gunpowder.

Convinced that the ship was full of powder instead of having a cargo of wine, Grimaud hastened to awake D’Artagnan, who had no sooner beheld him than he perceived that something extraordinary had taken place.  Imposing silence, Grimaud put out the little night lamp, then knelt down and poured into the lieutenant’s ear a recital melodramatic enough not to require play of feature to give it pith.