bscures 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, whilst 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 that grain of powder which, burning, dilates into
ten thousand times its volume, D'Artagnan, enlightened by ideas and
suspicions, rapidly reascended the stairs towards the terrace. The
white horse was still galloping in the direction of the Loire, at the
extremity of which, melting into the vapors of the water, a little
sail appeared, wave-balanced like a water-butterfly. "Oh!" cried the
musketeer, "only a man who wants to fly 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 towards the sea, while there are such thick
forests on 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 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 the avenger, animating himself as in
war, D'Artagnan, so mild, so kind towards Fouquet, was surprised to find
himself become ferocious--almost sanguinary. For a long time he galloped
without catching sight of the white horse. His rage assumed fury, 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
Saint-Mande, had so frequently admired and envied fo