“I mentioned your diamond then to my adversary, who had likewise remarked it. What the devil, my dear, do you think you can wear a star from heaven on your finger, and nobody observe it? Impossible!”
“Go on, go on, my dear fellow!” said d’Artagnan; “for upon my honor, you will kill me with your indifference.”
“We divided, then, this diamond into ten parts of a hundred pistoles each.”
“You are laughing at me, and want to try me!” said d’Artagnan, whom anger began to take by the hair, as Minerva takes Achilles, in the Iliad .
“No, I do not jest, mordieu ! I should like to have seen you in my place! I had been fifteen days without seeing a human face, and had been left to brutalize myself in the company of bottles.”
“That was no reason for staking my diamond!” replied d’Artagnan, closing his hand with a nervous spasm.
“Hear the end. Ten parts of a hundred pistoles each, in ten throws, without revenge; in thirteen throws I had lost all—in thirteen throws. The number thirteen was always fatal to me; it was on the thirteenth of July that—”
“ Ventrebleu! ” cried d’Artagnan, rising from the table, the story of the present day making him forget that of the preceding one.
“Patience!” said Athos; “I had a plan. The Englishman was an original; I had seen him conversing that morning with Grimaud, and Grimaud had told me that he had made him proposals to enter into his service. I staked Grimaud, the silent Grimaud, divided into ten portions.”
“Well, what next?” said d’Artagnan, laughing in spite of himself.