“Your advice is good, Athos, and I will this night have it carried out, or rather, I will carry it out myself; but let us go in, for the rain falls heavily, and the lightning is terrific.”

As they were passing over the ramparts to a gallery of which D’Artagnan had the key, they saw M.

de Saint-Mars directing his steps towards the chamber inhabited by the prisoner. Upon a sign from D’Artagnan, they concealed themselves in an angle of the staircase.

“What is it?” said Athos.

“You will see. Look. The prisoner is returning from chapel.”

And they saw, by the red flashes of lightning against the violet fog which the wind stamped upon the