The stranger cried that he acknowledged no other king but his Eminence.

Porthos called him drunk, and the stranger drew his sword.
"You have committed a piece of folly," said Athos, "but it can't be helped; there is no drawing back.

Kill the fellow, and rejoin us as soon as you can." All three remounted their horses, and set out at a good pace, while Porthos was promising his adversary to perforate him with all the thrusts known in the fencing schools.
"There goes one!" cried Athos, at the end of five hundred paces.
"But why did that man attack Porthos rather than any other one of us ?" asked Aramis.
"Because, as Porthos was talking louder than the rest of us, he took him for the chief," said d'Artagnan.
"I always said that this cadet from Gascony was a well of wisdom," murmured Athos; and the travelers continued their route.
At Beauvais they stopped two hours, as well to breathe their horses a little as to wait for Porthos.

At the end of two hours, as Porthos did not come, not any news of him, they resumed their journey.
At a league from Beauvais, where the road was confined between two high banks, they fell in with eight or ten men who, taking advantage of the road being unpaved in this spot, appeared to be employed in digging holes and filling up the ruts with mud.
Aramis, not liking to soil his boots with this artificial mortar, apostrophized them rather sharply.

Athos wished to restrain him, but it was too late.