THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. 447 ebony inlaid with gold^ which was not very voluminous in appearance, but which, without doubt, was very heavy, as a guard of five men was given to the messenger, to assist him in carrying it. These people arrived before the place which D'Artagnan was besieging, toward daybreak, and presented themselves at the lodgings of the general. They were told that D'Artagnan, annoyed by a sortie which the governor, an artful man, had made the evening before, and in which the works had been destroyed, seventy-seven men killed, and the reparation of the breaches commenced, had just gone with half a score companies of grenadiers to reconstruct the works. M. Colbert^s envoy had orders to go and seek M. d'Ar- tagnan, wherever he might be, or at whatever hour of the day or night. He directed his course, therefore, toward the trenches, followed by his escort, all on horseback. They perceived M. d^Artagnan in the open plain, with his gold- laced hat, his long cane, and his large gilded cuffs. He was biting his white mustache, and wiping off, with his left hand, the dust which the passing balls threw up from the ground they plowed near him. They also saw, amid this terrible fire, which filled the air with its hissing whistle, officers handling the shovel, soldiers rolling barrows, and vast fascines, rising by being either carried or dragged by from ten to twenty men, covered the front of the trench reopened to the center by this extraordinary effort of the general animating , his soldiers. In three hours all had been reinstated. D'Artagnan began to speak more mildly, and he became quite calm when the captain of the pioneers ap- proached him, hat in hand, to tell him that the trench was again lodgeable. This man had scarcely finished speaking, when a ball took off one of his legs, and he fell into the arms of D'Artagnan. The latter lifted up his soldier, and quietly, with soothing words, carried him into the trench, amid the enthusiastic applause of the regiments. From that time, it was no longer ardor — it was delirium; two companies stole away up to the advance posts, which they destroyed instantly. When their comrades, restrained with great difficulty by D^Artagnan, saw them lodged upon the bastions, they rushed forward likewise; and soon a furious assault was made upon the counterscarp, upon which depended the safety of the place. D'Artagnan perceived there was only one means left of stopping his army, and that was to lodge
it in the place. He directed all his force to two breaches.
