Port Wine.
In ten minutes the masters slept; not so the servants ---hungry, and more thirsty than hungry.
Blaisois and Musqueton set themselves to preparing their bed which consisted of a plank and a valise. On a hanging table, which swung to and fro with the rolling of the vessel, were a pot of beer and three glasses.
"This cursed rolling!" said Blaisois. "I know it will serve me as it did when we came over."
"And to think," said Musqueton, "that we have nothing to fight seasickness with but barley bread and hop beer. Pah!"
"But where is your wicker flask, Monsieur Musqueton? Have you lost it?" asked Blaisois.
"No," replied Musqueton, "Parry kept it. Those devilish Scotchmen are always thirsty. And you, Grimaud," he said to his companion, who had just come in after his round with D'Artagnan, "are you thirsty?"
"As thirsty as a Scotchman!" was Grimaud's laconic reply.
And he sat down and began to cast up the accounts of his party, whose money he managed.
"Oh, lackadaisy! I'm beginning to feel queer!" cried Blaisois.
"If that's the case," said Musqueton, with a learned air, "take some nourishment."
"Do you call that nourishment?" said Blaisois, pointing to the barley bread and pot of beer upon the table.
"Blaisois," replied Musqueton, "remember that bread is the true nourishment of a Frenchman, who is not always able to get bread, ask Grimaud."
"Yes, but beer?" asked Blaisois sharply, "is that their true drink?"
"As to that," answered Musqueton, puzzled how to get out of the difficulty, "I must confess that to me beer is as disagreeable as wine is to the English."
"What! Monsieur Musqueton! The English -- do they dislike wine?"
"They hate it."
"But I have seen them drink it."
"As a punishment. For example, an English prince died one day because they had put him into a butt of Malmsey. I heard the Chevalier d'Herblay say so."
"The fool!" cried Blaisois, "I wish I had been in his place."
"Thou canst be," said Grimaud, writing down his figures.
"How?" asked Blaisois, "I can? Explain yourself."
Grimaud went on with his sum and cast up the whole.
"Port," he said, extending his hand in the direction of the first compartment examined by D'Artagnan and himself.
"Eh? eh? ah? Those barrels I saw through the door?"
"Port!" replied Grimaud, beginning a fresh sum.
"I have heard," said Blaisois, "that port is a very good wine."
"Excellent!" exclaimed Musqueton, smacking his lips.
"Excellent; there is port wine in the cellar of Monsieur le Baron de Bracieux."
"Suppose we ask these Englishmen to sell us a bottle," said the honest Blaisois.
"Sell!" cried Musqueton, about whom there was a remnant of his ancient marauding character left. "One may well perceive, young man, that you are inexperienced. Why buy what one can take?"
"Take!" said Blaisois; "covet the goods of your neighbor?
That is forbidden, it seems to me."
"Where forbidden?" asked Musqueton.
"In the commandments of God, or of the church, I don't know which. I only know it says, `Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor yet his wife.'"
"That is a child's reason, Monsieur Blaisois," said Musqueton in his most patronizing manner. "Yes, you talk like a child -- I repeat the word. Where have you read in the Scriptures, I ask you, that the English are your neighbors?"
"Where, that is true," said Blaisois; "at least, I can't now recall it."
"A child's reason -- I repeat it," continued Musqueton. "If you had been ten years engaged in war, as Grimaud and I have been, my dear Blaisois, you would know the difference there is between the goods of others and the goods of enemies. Now an Englishman is an enemy; this port wine belongs to the English, therefore it belongs to us."
"And our masters?" asked Blaisois, stupefied by this harangue, delivered with an air of profound sagacity, "will they be of your opinion?"
Musqueton smiled disdainfully.
"I suppose that you think it necessary that I should disturb the repose of these illustrious lords to say, `Gentlemen, your servant, Musqueton, is thirsty.' What does Monsieur Bracieux care, think you, whether I am thirsty or not?"
"'Tis a very expensive wine," said Blaisois, shaking his head.
"Were it liquid gold, Monsieur Blaisois, our masters would not deny themselves this wine. Know that Monsieur de Bracieux is rich enough to drink a tun of port wine, even if obliged to pay a pistole for every drop." His manner became more and more lofty every instant; then he arose and after finishing off the beer at one draught he advanced majestically to the door of the compartment where the wine was. "Ah! locked!" he exclaimed; "these devils of English, how suspicious they are!"
"Locked!" said Blaisois; "ah! the deuce it is; unlucky, for my stomach is getting more and more upset."
"Locked!" repeated Musqueton.
"But," Blaisois ventured to say, "I have heard you relate, Monsieur Musqueton, that once on a time, at Chantilly, you fed your master and yourself by taking partridges in a snare, carp with a line, and bottles with a slipnoose."
"Perfectly true; but there was an airhole in the cellar and the wine was in bottles. I cannot throw the loop through this partition nor move with a pack-thread a cask of wine which may perhaps weigh two hundred pounds."
"No, but you can take out two or three boards of the partition," answered Blaisois, "and make a hole in the cask with a gimlet."
Musqueton opened his great round eyes to the utmost, astonished to find in Blaisois qualities for which he did not give him credit.
"'Tis true," he said; "but where can I get a chisel to take the planks out, a gimlet to pierce the cask?"
"Trousers," said Grimaud, still squaring his accounts.
"Ah, yes!" said Musqueton.
Grimaud, in fact, was not only the accountant, but the armorer of the party; and as he was a man full of forethought, these trousers, carefully rolled up in his valise, contained every sort of tool for immediate use.