Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas, Alexandre part two

This being said, the musketeer gave orders that the carriage with the iron trellis should be taken immediately to a thicket situated just outside the city. He selected his best horse, jumped upon his back, galloped along the Rue aux Herbes, taking, not the road Fouquet had taken, but the very bank of the Loire, certain that he should gain ten minutes upon the total of the distance, and at the intersection of the two lines come up with the fugitive, who could have no suspicion of being pursued in that direction. In the rapidity of the pursuit, and with the impatience of a persecutor animating himself in the chase as in war, d’Artagnan, so mild, so kind towards Fouquet, was surprised to find himself become ferocious and almost sanguinary. For a long time he galloped without catching sight of the white horse. His fury assumed the tints of rage; he doubted himself; he suspected that Fouquet had buried himself in some subterranean road, or that he had changed the white horse for one of those famous black ones, as swift as the wind, which d’Artagnan at St. Mande had so frequently admired, envying their vigorous lightness.

At these moments, when the wind cut his eyes so as to make the water spring from them; when the saddle had become burning hot; when the galled and spurred horse reared with pain and threw behind him a shower of dust and stones,- d’Artagnan, raising himself in his stirrups, and seeing nothing on the waters, nothing beneath the trees, looked up into the air like a madman. He was losing his senses. In the paroxysms of his eagerness he dreamed of aerial ways,- the discovery of the following century; he called to his mind Daedalus and his vast wings, which saved him from the prisons of Crete. A hoarse sigh broke from his lips as he repeated, devoured by the fear of ridicule, “I! I! duped by a Gourville! I! They will say I am growing old; they will say I have received a million to allow Fouquet to escape!” And he again dug his spurs into the sides of his horse; he had ridden astonishingly fast. Suddenly, at the extremity of some open pasture-ground behind the hedges, he saw a white form which showed itself, disappeared, and at last remained distinctly visible upon a rising ground. D’Artagnan’s heart leaped with joy. He wiped the streaming sweat from his brow, relaxed the tension of his knees,- freed from which the horse breathed more freely,- and gathering up his reins, moderated the speed of the vigorous animal, his active accomplice in this man-hunt. He had then time to study the direction of the road and his position with regard to Fouquet. The superintendent had completely winded his horse by crossing the soft grounds. He felt the necessity of gaining a more firm footing, and turned towards the road by the shortest secant line. D’Artagnan, on his part, had nothing to do but to ride straight beneath the sloping shore, which concealed him from the eyes of his enemy; so that he would cut him off on his reaching the road. Then the real race would begin; then the struggle would be in earnest.

D’Artagnan gave his horse good breathing-time. He observed that the superintendent had relaxed into a trot; that is to say, he likewise was indulging his horse. But both of them were too much pressed for time to allow them to continue long at that pace. The white horse sprang off like an arrow the moment his feet touched firm ground. D’Artagnan dropped his hand, and his black horse broke into a gallop. Both followed the same route; the quadruple echoes of the course were confounded. Fouquet had not yet perceived d’Artagnan. But on issuing from the slope a single echo struck the air; it was that of the steps of d’Artagnan’s horse, which rolled along like thunder. Fouquet turned round, and saw behind him within a hundred paces his enemy bent over the neck of his horse. There could be no doubt- the shining baldric, the red uniform- it was a musketeer. Fouquet slackened his hand likewise, and the white horse placed twenty feet more between his adversary and himself.

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