"Sire, it is also said that Guiche's horse was killed, and that the horse is still to be found in the wide open glade in the forest."
"His horse?--Guiche go on horseback to a boar-hunt!--Saint-Aignan, I do not understand a syllable of what you have been telling me. Where did the affair happen?"
"At the Rond-point, in that part of the forest called the Bois-Rochin."
"That will do. Call M. d'Artagnan." Saint-Aignan obeyed, and the musketeer entered.
"Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the king, "you will leave this place by the little door of the private staircase."
"And you will proceed to the Rond-point du Bois-Rochin. Do you know the spot?"
"What!" exclaimed the king, amazed at the reply.
"Under the edicts, sire, of Cardinal Richelieu," returned D'Artagnan, with his usual impassibility.
"That is very different, monsieur. You will, therefore, go there, and will examine the locality very carefully. A man has been wounded there, and you will find a horse lying dead. You will tell me what your opinion is upon the whole affair."
"It is a matter of course that it is your own opinion I require, and not that of any one else."
"You shall have it in an hour's time, sire."
"I prohibit your speaking with any one, whoever it may be."
"Except with the person who must give me a lantern," said D'Artagnan.
"Oh! that is a matter of course," said the king, laughing at the liberty, which he tolerated in no one but his captain of musketeers. D'Artagnan left by the little staircase.
"Now, let my physician be sent for," said Louis. Ten minutes afterward the king's physician arrived, quite out of breath.
"You will go, monsieur," said the king to him, "and accompany M. de Saint-Aignan wherever he may take you; you will render me an account of the state of the person you may see in the house you will be taken to." The physician obeyed without a remark, as at that time people began to obey Louis XIV., and left the room preceding Saint-Aignan.
"Do you, Saint-Aignan, send Manicamp to me, before the physician can possibly have spoken to him." And Saint-Aignan left in his turn.
SHOWING IN WHAT WAY D'ARTAGNAN DISCHARGED THE MISSION WITH WHICH THE KING HAD INTRUSTED HIM.
While the king was engaged in making these last-mentioned arrangements in order to ascertain the truth, D'Artagnan, without losing a second, ran to the stable, took down the lantern, saddled his horse himself, and proceeded toward the place which his majesty had indicated. According to the promise he had made, he had neither seen nor met any one; and, as we have observed, he had carried his scruples so far as to do without the assistance of the helpers in the stables altogether. D'Artagnan was one of those who in moments of difficulty pride themselves on increasing their own value. By dint of hard galloping, he in less than five minutes reached the wood, fastened his horse to the first tree he came to, and penetrated to the broad open space on foot. He then began to inspect most carefully, on foot and with his lantern in his hand, the whole surface of the Rond-point, went forward, turned back again, measured, examined, and after half an hour's minute inspection, he returned silently to where he had left his horse, and pursued his way in deep reflection and at a foot-pace to Fontainebleau. Louis was waiting in his cabinet; he was alone, and with a pencil was scribbling on paper certain lines which D'Artagnan at the first glance recognized as being very unequal and very much scratched about. The conclusion he arrived at was, that they must be verses. The king raised his head and perceived D'Artagnan. "Well, monsieur," he said, "do you bring me any news?"