committing suicide; for I have seen him hunt, and he is an active and
vigorous hunter. Whenever he fires at an animal brought to bay and held
in check by the dogs, he takes every possible precaution, and yet he
fires with a carbine, and on this occasion he seems to have faced the
boar with pistols only."

Manicamp started.

"A costly pair of pistols, excellent weapons to fight a duel with a man
and not a wild boar. What an absurdity!"

"There are some things, sire, which are difficult of explanation."

"You are quite right, and the event which we are now discussing is
certainly one of them. Go on."

During the recital, Saint-Aignan, who probably would have made a sign to
Manicamp to be careful what he was about, found that the king's glance
was constantly fixed upon himself, so that it was utterly impossible to
communicate with Manicamp in any way. As for D'Artagnan, the statue of
Silence at Athens was far more noisy and far more expressive than he.
Manicamp, therefore, was obliged to continue in the same way he had
begun, and so contrived to get more and more entangled in his
explanation. "Sire," he said, "this is probably how the affair
happened. Guiche was waiting to receive the boar as it rushed towards
him."

"On foot or on horseback?" inquired the king.

"On horseback. He fired upon the brute and missed his aim, and then it