Six days were allowed as the utmost term, and D'Artagnan was sufficiently acquainted with the good-will, the good-humor, and the relative probity of these illustrious recruits, to be certain that not one of them would fail in his appointment.

These orders given, this rendezvous fixed, he went to bid farewell to Planchet, who asked news of his army.

D'Artagnan did not think it proper to inform him of the reduction he had made in his _personnel_.

He feared that the confidence of his associate would be abated by such an avowal.

Planchet was delighted to learn that the army was levied, and that he (Planchet) found himself a kind of half king, who from his throne-counter kept in pay a body of troops destined to make war against perfidious Albion, that enemy of all true French hearts.