CHAPTER CXIV.
THE WHITE HORSE AND THE BLACK HORSE.
"That is rather surprising," said D'Artagnan, "Gourville running aboutthe streets so gayly, when he is almost certain that M. Fouquet is indanger; when it is almost equally certain that it was Gourville whowarned M. Fouquet just now by the note which was torn into a thousandpieces upon the terrace and given to the winds by Monsieur leSurintendant. Gourville is rubbing his hands, that is because he hasdone something clever. Whence comes M. Gourville? Gourville is comingfrom the Rue aux Herbes. Whither does the Rue aux Herbes lead?" AndD'Artagnan followed along the tops of the houses of Nantes dominated bythe castle, the line traced by the streets, as he would have done upon atopographical plan; only, instead of the dead, flat paper, the livingchart rose in relief with the cries, the movements, and the shadows ofthe men and things. Beyond the inclosure of the city, the great verdantplains stretched out, bordering the Loire, and appeared to run towardthe empurpled horizon, which was cut by the azure of the waters and thedark green of the marshes. Immediately outside the gates of Nantes twowhite roads were seen diverging like the separated fingers of a gigantichand. D'Artagnan, who had taken in all the panorama at a glance bycrossing the terrace, was led by the line of the Rue aux Herbes to themouth of one of those roads which took its rise under the gates ofNantes. One step more, and he was about to descend the stairs, take histrellised carriage and go toward the lodgings of M. Fouquet. But chancedecreed that at the moment of replunging into the staircase he wasattracted by a moving point which was gaining ground upon that road.
"What is that?" said the musketeer to himself; "a horse galloping--arunaway horse, no doubt. What a pace he is going at!" The moving pointbecame detached from the road, and entered into the fields. "A whitehorse," continued the captain, who had just seen the color thrown outluminously against the dark ground, "and he is mounted; it must be someboy whose horse is thirsty and has run away with him to thedrinking-place, diagonally." These reflections, rapid as lightning,simultaneous with visual perception, D'Artagnan had already forgottenwhen he descended the first steps of the staircase. Some morsels ofpaper were spread over the stairs, and shone out white against the dirtystones. "Eh! eh!" said the captain to himself, "here are some of thefragments of the note torn by M. Fouquet. Poor man! he had given hissecret to the wind; the wind will have no more to do with it, and bringsit back to the king. Decidedly. Fouquet, you play with misfortune! thegame is not a fair one--fortune is against you. The star of Louis XIV.obscures yours; the adder is stronger and more cunning than thesquirrel." D'Artagnan picked up one of these morsels of paper as hedescended. "Gourville's pretty little hand," cried he, while examiningone of the fragments of the note; "I was not mistaken." And he read theword "horse." "Stop!" said he; and he examined another, upon which therewas not a letter traced. Upon a third he read the word "white": "whitehorse," repeated he, like a child that is spelling. "Ah, mordioux!"cried the suspicious spirit, "a white horse!" And, like to that grain ofpowder which, burning, dilates into a centupled volume, D'Artagnan,enlarged by ideas and suspicions, rapidly reascended the stairs towardthe terrace. The white horse was still galloping in the direction ofthe Loire, at the extremity of which, melted into the vapors of thewater, a little sail appeared, balancing, like an atom.
"Oh, oh!" cried the musketeer, "there is but a man who flies who wouldgo at that pace across plowed lands; there is but one Fouquet, afinancier, to ride thus in open day upon a white horse; there is no onebut the lord of Belle-Isle who would make his escape toward the sea,while there are such thick forests on the land; and there is but oneD'Artagnan in the world to catch M. Fouquet, who has half an hour'sstart, and who will have gained his boat within an hour." This beingsaid, the musketeer gave orders that the carriage with the iron trellisshould be taken immediately to a thicket situated just outside the city.He selected his best horse, jumped upon his back, galloped along the Rueaux Herbes, taking, not the road Fouquet had taken, but the bank itselfof the Loire, certain that he should gain ten minutes upon the total ofthe distance, and, at the intersection of the two lines, come up withthe fugitive, who could have no suspicion of being pursued in thatdirection. In the rapidity of the pursuit, and with the impatience ofthe persecutor, animated himself in the chase as in war, D'Artagnan, somild, so kind toward Fouquet, was surprised to find himself becomeferocious and almost sanguinary. For a long time he galloped withoutcatching sight of the white horse. His fury assumed the tints of rage;he doubted of himself--he suspected that Fouquet had buried himself insome subterranean road, or that he had changed the white horse for oneof those famous black ones, as swift as the wind, which D'Artagnan, atSaint-Mande, had so frequently admired, and envied their vigorouslightness.
At these moments, when the wind cut his eyes so as to make the waterspring from them, when the saddle had become burning hot, when thegalled and spurred horse reared with pain, and threw behind him a showerof dust and stones, D'Artagnan, raising himself in his stirrups, andseeing nothing on the waters--nothing beneath the trees, looked up intothe air like a madman. He was losing his senses. In the paroxysms of hiseagerness he dreamed of aerial ways--the discovery of the followingcentury; he called to his mind Daedalus and his vast wings, which hadsaved 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 aGourville! I! They will say I am growing old--they will say I havereceived a million to allow Fouquet to escape!" And he again dug hisspurs into the sides of his horse: he had ridden astonishingly fast.Suddenly, at the extremity of some open pasture-ground, behind thehedges, he saw a white form which showed itself, disappeared, and atlast remained distinctly visible upon a rising ground. D'Artagnan'sheart leaped with joy. He wiped the streaming sweat from his brow,relaxed the tension of his knees--by which the horse breathed morefreely--and gathering up his reins, moderated the speed of the vigorousanimal, his active accomplice in this man hunt. He had then time tostudy the direction of the road, and his position with regard toFouquet. The surintendant had completely winded his horse by crossingthe soft grounds. He felt the necessity of gaining a more firm footing,and turned toward the road by the shortest secant line. D'Artagnan, onhis part, had nothing to do but to ride straight beneath the slopingshore, which concealed him from the eyes of his enemy; so that he wouldcut him off on his road when he came up with him. Then the real racewould begin--then the struggle would be in earnest.
D'Artagnan gave his horse good breathing-time. He observed that thesurintendant had relaxed into a trot, which was to say, he likewise wasindulging his horse. But both of them were too much pressed for time toallow them to continue long at that pace. The white horse sprang offlike an arrow the moment his feet touched firm ground. D'Artagnandropped his hand, and his black horse broke into a gallop. Both followedthe 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'shorse, which rolled along like thunder. Fouquet turned round, and sawbehind him, within a hundred paces, his enemy bent over the neck of hishorse. There could be no doubt--the shining baldrick, the redcassock--it was a musketeer. Fouquet slackened his hand likewise, andthe white horse placed twenty feet more between his adversary andhimself.
"Oh, but," thought D'Artagnan, becoming very anxious, "that is not acommon horse M. Fouquet is upon--let us see!" And he attentivelyexamined, with his infallible eye, the shape and capabilities of thecourser. Round full quarters--a thin long tail--large hocks--thin legs,dry as bars of steel--hoofs hard as marble. He spurred his own, but thedistance between the two remained the same. D'Artagnan listenedattentively; not a breath of the horse reached him, and yet he seemed tocut the air. The black horse, on the contrary, began to blow like ablacksmith's bellows.
"I must overtake him, if I kill my horse," thought the musketeer: and hebegan to saw the mouth of the poor animal, while he buried the rowels ofhis merciless spurs in his sides. The madde
ned horse gained twentytoises, and came up within pistol-shot of Fouquet.
"Courage!" said the musketeer to himself, "courage; the white horse willperhaps grow weaker, and if the horse does not fall, the master mustfall at last." But horse and rider remained upright together, andgaining ground by degrees. D'Artagnan uttered a wild cry, which madeFouquet turn round, and added speed to the white horse.
"A famous horse! a mad rider!" growled the captain. "Hola! mordioux!Monsieur Fouquet! stop! in the king's name!" Fouquet made no reply.
"Do you hear me?" shouted D'Artagnan, whose horse had just stumbled.
"Pardieu!" replied Fouquet, laconically; and rode on faster.
D'Artagnan was nearly mad; the blood rushed boiling to his temples andhis eyes. "In the king's name!" cried he again; "stop, or I will bringyou down with a pistol-shot!"
"Do!" replied Fouquet, without relaxing his speed.
D'Artagnan seized a pistol and cocked it, hoping that the noise of thespring would stop his enemy. "You have pistols likewise," said he, "turnand defend yourself."
Fouquet did turn round at the noise, and looking D'Artagnan full in theface, opened with his right hand the part of his dress which concealedhis body, but he did not even touch his holsters. There were not morethan twenty paces between the two.
"Mordioux!" said D'Artagnan, "I will not assassinate you; if you willnot fire upon me, surrender! what is a prison?"
"I would rather die!" replied Fouquet; "I shall suffer less."
D'Artagnan, drunk with despair, hurled his pistol to the ground. "I willtake you alive!" said he; and by a prodigy of skill of which thisincomparable horseman alone was capable he threw his horse forward towithin ten paces of the white horse; already his hand was stretched outto seize his prey.
"Kill me! kill me!" cried Fouquet; "it is more humane!"
"No! alive--alive!" murmured the captain.
At this moment his horse made a false step for the second time, andFouquet's again took the lead. It was an unheard of spectacle, this racebetween two horses which were only kept alive by the will of theirriders. It might be said that D'Artagnan rode carrying his horse alongbetween his knees. To the furious gallop had succeeded the fast trot,and that had sunk to what might be scarcely called a trot at all. Andthe chase appeared equally warm in the two fatigued _athletae_.D'Artagnan, quite in despair, seized his second pistol, and cocked it.
"At your horse! not at you!" cried he to Fouquet. And he fired. Theanimal was hit in the quarters--he made a furious bound, and plungedforward. At that moment D'Artagnan's horse fell dead.
"I am dishonored!" thought the musketeer; "I am a miserable wretch! forpity's sake, M. Fouquet, throw me one of your pistols that I may blowout my brains!" But Fouquet rode on.
"For mercy's sake! for mercy's sake!" cried D'Artagnan; "that which youwill not do at this moment, I myself will do within an hour; but here,upon this road, I should die bravely; I should die esteemed; do me thatservice, M. Fouquet!"
M. Fouquet made no reply, but continued to trot on. D'Artagnan began torun after his enemy. Successively he threw off his hat, his coat, whichembarrassed him, and then the sheath of his sword, which got between hislegs as he was running. The sword in his hand even became too heavy, andhe threw it after the sheath. The white horse began to rattle in histhroat; D'Artagnan gained upon him. From a trot the exhausted animalsunk to a staggering walk--the foam from his mouth was mixed with blood.D'Artagnan made a desperate effort, sprang toward Fouquet, and seizedhim by the leg, saying in a broken breathless voice, "I arrest you inthe king's name! blow my brains out, if you like--we have both done ourduty."
Fouquet hurled far from him, into the river, the two pistols whichD'Artagnan might have seized, and dismounting from his horse--"I am yourprisoner, monsieur," said he; "will you take my arm, for I see you areready to faint."
"Thanks!" murmured D'Artagnan, who, in fact, felt the earth moving fromunder his feet, and the sky melting away over his head; and he rolledupon the sand, without breath or strength. Fouquet hastened to the brinkof the river, dipped some water in his hat, with which he bathed thetemples of the musketeer, and introduced a few drops between his lips.D'Artagnan raised himself up, looking round with a wandering eye. He sawFouquet on his knees, with his wet hat in his hand, smiling upon himwith ineffable sweetness. "You are not gone, then?" cried he. "Oh,monsieur! the true king in royalty, in heart, in soul, is not Louis ofthe Louvre, or Philippe of Sainte-Marguerite; it is you, the proscribed,the condemned!"
"I, who this day am ruined by a single error, M. d'Artagnan."
"What, in the name of Heaven! is that?"
"I should have had you for a friend! But how shall we return to Nantes?We are a great way from it."
"That is true," said D'Artagnan, gloomy and sad.
"The white horse will recover, perhaps; he is a good horse! Mount,Monsieur d'Artagnan; I will walk till you have rested a little."
"Poor beast! and wounded too!" said the musketeer.
"He will go, I tell you; I know him; but we can do better still, let usboth get up, and ride slowly."
"We can try," said the captain. But they had scarcely charged the animalwith this double load than he began to stagger, then, with a greateffort, walked a few minutes, then staggered again, and sank down deadby the side of the black horse, which he had just managed to come up to.
"We will go on foot--destiny wills it so--the walk will be pleasant,"said Fouquet, passing his arm through that of D'Artagnan.
"Mordioux!" cried the latter, with a fixed eye, a contracted brow, and aswelling heart--"A disgraceful day!"
They walked slowly the four leagues which separated them from the littlewood behind which waited the carriage with the escort. When Fouquetperceived that sinister machine, he said to D'Artagnan, who cast downhis eyes as ashamed of Louis XIV., "There is an idea which is not thatof a brave man, Captain d'Artagnan; it is not yours. What are thesegratings for?" said he.
"To prevent your throwing letters out."
"Ingenious!"
"But you can speak, if you cannot write," said D'Artagnan.
"Can I speak to you?"
"Why--certainly, if you wish to do so."
Fouquet reflected for a moment, then, looking the captain full in theface, "One single word," said he; "will you remember it?"
"I will not forget it."
"Will you speak it to whom I wish?"
"I will."
"Saint-Mande," articulated Fouquet, in a low voice.
"Well! and for whom?"
"For Madame de Belliere or Pellisson."
"It shall be done."
The carriage passed through Nantes, and took the route of Angers.
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