apid as lightning,
simultaneous with visual perception, D'Artagnan had already forgotten
when he descended the first steps of the staircase. Some morsels of
paper were spread over the stairs, and shone out white against the dirty
stones. "Eh! eh!" said the captain to himself, "here are some of the
fragments of the note torn by M. Fouquet. Poor man! he had given his
secret to the wind; the wind will have no more to do with it, and brings
it back to the king. Decidedly. Fouquet, you play with misfortune! the
game is not a fair one--fortune is against you. The star of Louis XIV.
obscures yours; the adder is stronger and more cunning than the
squirrel." D'Artagnan picked up one of these morsels of paper as he
descended. "Gourville's pretty little hand," cried he, while examining
one of the fragments of the note; "I was not mistaken." And he read the
word "horse." "Stop!" said he; and he examined another, upon which there
was not a letter traced. Upon a third he read the word "white": "white
horse," repeated he, like a child that is spelling. "Ah, mordioux!"
cried the suspicious spirit, "a white horse!" And, like to that grain of
powder which, burning, dilates into a centupled volume, D'Artagnan,
enlarged by ideas and suspicions, rapidly reascended the stairs toward
the terrace. The white horse was still galloping in the direction of
the Loire, at the extremity of which, melted into the vapors of the
water, a little sail appeared, balancing, like an atom.

"Oh, oh!" cried the musketeer, "there is but a man who flies who would
go at that pace across plowed lands; there is but one Fouquet, a
financier, to ride thus in open day upon a white horse; there is no one
but 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 one
D'Artagnan in the world to catch M. Fouquet, who has half an hour's
start, and who will have gained his boat within an hour." 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 bank itself
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
direc