pins; wherever a pin was missing, a hole denoted its having been there.

Athos, by following with his eye the pins and holes, saw that D’Artagnan had taken the direction of the south, and gone as far as the Mediterranean, towards Toulon. It was near Cannes that the marks and the punctured places ceased. The Comte de la Fere puzzled his brains for some time, to divine what the musketeer could be going to do at Cannes, and what motive could have led him to examine the banks of the Var. The reflections of Athos suggested nothing. His accustomed perspicacity was at fault. Raoul’s researches were not more successful than his father’s.

“Never mind,” said the young man to the comte, who silently, and with his finger, had made him understand the route of D’Artagnan;