tion. In the rapidity of the pursuit, and with the impatience of
the persecutor, animated himself in the chase as in war, D'Artagnan, so
mild, so kind toward 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 of 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
Saint-Mande, had so frequently admired, and envied 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 had
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--by 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 surintendant had completely winded his horse by crossing
the soft grounds. He felt the necessity of gaining a more firm footing,
and turned toward 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 road w