“Speak out,” answered D’Artagnan.
“I had only to cry out ‘Help!’ for you and for your companions to be cut to pieces, and then I should have been free.”
“Why didn’t you do it?” asked the lieutenant.
“Come, come!” cried Rochefort. “Did we not swear friendship? Ah! had any one but you been there, I don’t say — — ”
D’Artagnan bowed.
“Is it possible that Rochefort has become a better man than I am?” he said to himself. And he caused himself to be announced to the minister.
“Let M. de Rochefort enter,” said Mazarin, eagerly, on hearing their names pronounced;