thought, and he hoped and despaired by turns.

D'Artagnan went once as far as Scheveningen, in order to be
certain that all was true that was said of the king. He
beheld Charles II., pensive and alone, coming out of a
little door opening into the wood, and walking on the beach
in the setting sun, without even attracting the attention of
the fishermen, who, on their return in the evening, drew,
like the ancient mariners of the Archipelago, their barks up
upon the sand of the shore.

D'Artagnan recognized the king; he saw him fix his
melancholy look upon the immense extent of the waters, and
absorb upon his pale countenance the red rays of the sun
already cut by the black line of the horizon. Then Charles
returned to his isolated abode, always alone, slow and sad,
amusing himself with making the friable and moving sand
creak beneath his feet.

That very evening D'Artagnan hired for a thousand livres a
fishing-boat worth four thousand. He paid a thousand livres
down, and deposited the three thousand with a Burgomaster,
after which he brought on board without their being seen,
the ten men who formed his land army; and with the rising
tide, at three o'clock in the morning, he got into the open
sea, maneuvering ostensibly with the four others, and
depending upon the science of his galley slave as upon that
of the first pilot of the port.