Strength and Sagacity.
Now let us pass the orangery to the hunting lodge. At the extremity of the courtyard, where, close to a portico formed of Ionic columns, were the dog kennels, rose an oblong building, the pavilion of the orangery, a half circle, inclosing the court of honor. It was in this pavilion, on the ground floor, that D'Artagnan and Porthos were confined, suffering interminable hours of imprisonment in a manner suitable to each different temperament.
D'Artagnan was pacing to and fro like a caged tiger; with dilated eyes, growling as he paced along by the bars of a window looking upon the yard of servant's offices.
Porthos was ruminating over an excellent dinner he had just demolished.
The one seemed to be deprived of reason, yet he was meditating. The other seemed to meditate, yet he was more than half asleep. But his sleep was a nightmare, which might be guessed by the incoherent manner in which he sometimes snored and sometimes snorted.
"Look," said D'Artagnan, "day is declining. It must be nearly four o'clock. We have been in this place nearly eighty-three hours."
"Hem!" muttered Porthos, with a kind of pretense of answering.
"Did you hear, eternal sleeper?" cried D'Artagnan, irritated that any one could doze during the day, when he had the greatest difficulty in sleeping during the night.
"What?" said Porthos.
"I say we have been here eighty-three hours."
"'Tis your fault," answered Porthos.
"How, my fault?"
"Yes, I offered you escape."
"By pulling out a bar and pushing down a door?"
"Certainly."
"Porthos, men like us can't go out from here purely and simply."
"Faith!" said Porthos, "as for me, I could go out with that purity and that simplicity which it seems to me you despise too much."
D'Artagnan shrugged his shoulders.
"And besides," he said, "going out of this chamber isn't all."
"Dear friend," said Porthos, "you appear to be in a somewhat better humor to-day than you were yesterday. Explain to me why going out of this chamber isn't everything."
"Because, having neither arms nor password, we shouldn't take fifty steps in the court without knocking against a sentinel."
Very well," said Porthos, "we will kill the sentinel and we shall have his arms."
"Yes, but before we can kill him -- and he will be hard to kill, that Swiss -- he will shriek out and the whole picket will come, and we shall be taken like foxes, we, who are lions, and thrown into some dungeon, where we shall not even have the consolation of seeing this frightful gray sky of Rueil, which no more resembles the sky of Tarbes than the moon is like the sun. Lack-a-day! if we only had some one to instruct us about the physical and moral topography of this castle. Ah! when one thinks that for twenty years, during which time I did not know what to do with myself, it never occurred to me to come to study Rueil."
"What difference does that make?" said Porthos. "We shall go out all the same."
"Do you know, my dear fellow, why master pastrycooks never work with their hands?"
"No," said Porthos, "but I should be glad to be informed."
"It is because in the presence of their pupils they fear that some of their tarts or creams may turn out badly cooked."
"What then?"
"Why, then they would be laughed at, and a master pastrycook must never be laughed at."
"And what have master pastrycooks to do with us?"
"We ought, in our adventures, never to be defeated or give any one a chance to laugh at us. In England, lately, we failed, we were beaten, and that is a blemish on our reputation."
"By whom, then, were we beaten?" asked Porthos.
"By Mordaunt."
"Yes, but we have drowned Monsieur Mordaunt."
"That is true, and that will redeem us a little in the eyes of posterity, if posterity ever looks at us. But listen, Porthos: though Monsieur Mordaunt was a man not to be despised, Mazarin is not less strong than he, and we shall not easily succeed in drowning him. We must, therefore, watch and play a close game; for," he added with a sigh, "we two are equal, perhaps, to eight others; but we are not equal to the four that you know of."
"That is true," said Porthos, echoing D'Artagnan's sigh.
"Well, Porthos, follow my examples; walk back and forth till some news of our friends reaches us or till we are visited by a good idea. But don't sleep as you do all the time; nothing dulls the intellect like sleep. As to what may lie before us, it is perhaps less serious than we at first thought. I don't believe that Monsieur de Mazarin thinks of cutting off our heads, for heads are not taken off without previous trial; a trial would make a noise, and a noise would get the attention of our friends, who would check the operations of Monsieur de Mazarin."
"How well you reason!" said Porthos, admiringly.
"Well, yes, pretty well," replied D'Artagnan; "and besides, you see, if they put us on trial, if they cut off our heads, they must meanwhile either keep us here or transfer us elsewhere."
"Yes, that is inevitable," said Porthos.
"Well, it is impossible but that Master Aramis, that keen-scented bloodhound, and Athos, that wise and prudent nobleman, will discover our retreat. Then, believe me, it will be time to act."
"Yes, we will wait. We can wait the more contentedly, that it is not absolutely bad here, but for one thing, at least."
"What is that?"
"Did you observe, D'Artagnan, that three days running they have brought us braised mutton?"
"No; but if it occurs a fourth time I shall complain of it, so never mind."
"And then I feel the loss of my house, 'tis a long time since I visited my castles."
"Forget them for a time; we shall return to them, unless Mazarin razes them to the ground."
"Do you think that likely?"
"No, the other cardinal would have done so, but this one is too mean a fellow to risk it."
"You reconcile me, D'Artagnan."