"Adieu! Monsieur d'Artagnan," added the king; "I think you have perfectly understood me."
"I? I understand that your majesty sends me to Belle-Isle-en-Mer, that is all."
"To learn?"
"To learn how M. Fouquet's works are going on; that is all."
"Very well: I admit you may be taken."
"And I do not admit it," replied the Gascon, boldly.
"I admit you may be killed," continued the king.
"That is not probable, sire."
"In the first case, you must not speak; in the second there must be no papers found upon you."
D'Artagnan shrugged his shoulders without ceremony, and took leave of the king, saying to himself: -- "The English shower continues -- let us remain under the spout!"
CHAPTER 54. The Houses of M. Fouquet
Whilst D'Artagnan was returning to Planchet's house, his head aching and bewildered with all that had happened to him, there was passing a scene of quite a different character, and which, nevertheless is not foreign to the conversation our musketeer had just had with the king; only this scene took place out of Paris, in a house possessed by the superintendent Fouquet in the village of Saint-Mande. The minister had just arrived at this country-house, followed by his principal clerk, who carried an enormous portfolio full of papers to be examined, and others waiting for signature. As it might be about five o'clock in the afternoon, the masters had dined: supper was being prepared for twenty subaltern guests. The superintendent did not stop: on alighting from his carriage, he, at the