Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he rushed out of the apartment.  On the staircase he met Athos and Porthos, who were coming to see him.  They separated, and d’Artagnan rushed between them like a dart.

“Pah!  Where are you going?” cried the two Musketeers in a breath.

“The man of Meung!” replied d’Artagnan, and disappeared.

D’Artagnan had more than once related to his friends his adventure with the stranger, as well as the apparition of the beautiful foreigner, to whom this man had confided some important missive.

The opinion of Athos was that d’Artagnan had lost his letter in the skirmish.  A gentleman, in his opinion—­and according to d’Artagnan’s portrait of him, the stranger must be a gentleman—­ would be incapable of the baseness of stealing a letter.

Porthos saw nothing in all this but a love meeting, given by a lady to a cavalier, or by a cavalier to a lady, which had been disturbed by the presence of d’Artagnan and his yellow horse.

Aramis said that as these sorts of affairs were mysterious, it was better not to fathom them.

They understood, then, from the few words which escaped from d’Artagnan, what affair was in hand, and as they thought that overtaking his man, or losing sight of him, d’Artagnan would return to his rooms, they kept on their way.

When they entered d’Artagnan’s chamber, it was empty; the landlord, dreading the consequences of the encounter which was doubtless about to take place between the young man and the stranger, had, consistent with the character he had given himself, judged it prudent to decamp.

9 D’ARTAGNAN shows himself

As Athos and Porthos had foreseen, at the expiration of a half hour, d’Artagnan returned.  He had again missed his man, who had disappeared as if by enchantment.  D’Artagnan had run, sword in hand, through all the neighboring streets, but had found nobody resembling the man he sought for.  Then he came back to the point where, perhaps, he ought to have begun, and that was to knock at the door against which the stranger had leaned; but this proved useless—­for though he knocked ten or twelve times in succession, no one answered, and some of the neighbors, who put their noses out of their windows or were brought to their doors by the noise, had assured him that that house, all the openings of which were tightly closed, had not been inhabited for six months.

While d’Artagnan was running through the streets and knocking at doors, Aramis had joined his companions; so that on returning home d’Artagnan found the reunion complete.

“Well!” cried the three Musketeers all together, on seeing d’Artagnan enter with his brow covered with perspiration and his countenance upset with anger.

“Well!” cried he, throwing his sword upon the bed, “this man must be the devil in person; he has disappeared like a phantom, like a shade, like a specter.”