Page:The Vicomte de Bragelonne 2.djvu/498

Rh 486 THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONXE. assisted in the restoration, there he gained a fortune, and, after all, he returned to the service of the king. Well, ii he has returned to the service of the king, it is because he has been well paid in that service." "We will pay him still better, that is all." "Oh, monsieur! excuse me; D'Artagnan has a high sense of his word, and where that word is once engaged, that word remains where it is." "What do you conclude, then?" said Fouquet, with great inquietude. "At present, the principal thing is to parry a dangerous blow." "And how is it to be parried?" "Listen." "But D'Artagnan will come and render an account to the king of his mission." "Oh, we have time enough to think about that." "How so? You are much in advance of him, I presume?" "Nearly ten hours." "Well, in ten hours " Aramis shook his pale head. "Look at these clouds which flit across the heavens, at these swallows which cut the air, D'Artagnan moves more quickly than the clouds or the birds; D'Artagnan is the wind which carries them." "A strange man!" "I tell you, he is something superhuman, monsieur. He is of my age, and I have known him these five-and-thirty years." "Well?" "Well, listen to my calculation, monsieur. I sent Mon- sieur du Valon off to you two hours after midnight. Mon- sieur du Valon was eight hours in advance of me; when did Monsieur du Valon arrive?" "About four hours ago." "You see, then, that I gained four upon him; and yet Porthos is a stanch horseman, and he has left on the road eight dead horses, whose bodies I came to successively. 1 rode post fifty leagues; but I have the gout, the gravel, and what else I know not; so that fatigue kills me. I was obliged to dismount at Tours; since that, rolling along in a carriage, half-dead, sometimes overturned, often drawn upon the sides, and sometimes on the back of the carriage, always with four spirited horses at full gallop, I have arrived — arrived, gaining four hours upon Porthos; but, see you, D'Artagnan does not weigh three hundred-weight,