The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas (ereader for android txt) 📖

master must pull up at last.” But horse and rider remained upright together, gaining ground by difficult degrees. D’Artagnan uttered a wild cry, which made Fouquet 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 and his eyes. “In the king’s name!” cried he again, “stop, or I will bring you down with a pistol-shot!”

“Do!” replied Fouquet, without relaxing his speed.

D’Artagnan seized a pistol and cocked it, hoping that the double click of the spring would stop his enemy. “You have pistols likewise,” said he, “turn and defend yourself.”

Fouquet did turn round at the noise, and looking D’Artagnan full in the face, opened, with his right hand, the part of his dress which concealed his body, but he did not even touch his holsters. There were not more than twenty paces between the two.

“Mordioux!” said D’Artagnan, “I will not assassinate you; if you will not 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 will take you alive!” said he; and by a prodigy of skill which this incomparable horseman alone was capable, he threw his horse forward to within ten paces of the white horse; already his hand was stretched out to seize his prey.

“Kill me! kill me!” cried Fouquet, “‘twould be more humane!”

“No! alive—alive!” murmured the captain.

At this moment his horse made a false step for the second time, and Fouquet’s again took the lead. It was an unheard-of spectacle, this race between two horses which now only kept alive by the will of their riders. It might be said that D’Artagnan rode, carrying his horse along between 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. But the chase appeared equally warm in the two fatigued athletoe. 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. The animal was hit in the quarters—he made a furious bound, and plunged forward. At that moment D’Artagnan’s horse fell dead.

“I am dishonored!” thought the musketeer; “I am a miserable wretch! for pity’s sake, M. Fouquet, throw me one of your pistols, that I may blow out my brains!” But Fouquet rode away.

“For mercy’s sake! for mercy’s sake!” cried D’Artagnan; “that which you will 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 that service, M. Fouquet!”

M. Fouquet made no reply, but continued to trot on. D’Artagnan began to run after his enemy. Successively he threw away his hat, his coat, which embarrassed him, and then the sheath of his sword, which got between his legs as he was running. The sword in his hand itself became too heavy, and he threw it after the sheath. The white horse began to rattle in its throat; D’Artagnan gained upon him. From a trot the exhausted animal sunk to a staggering walk—the foam from his mouth was mixed with blood. D’Artagnan made a desperate effort, sprang towards Fouquet, and seized him by the leg, saying in a broken, breathless voice, “I arrest you in the king’s name! blow my brains out, if you like; we have both done our duty.”

Fouquet hurled far from him, into the river, the two pistols D’Artagnan might have seized, and dismounting from his horse—“I am your prisoner, monsieur,” said he; “will you take my arm, for I see you are ready to faint?”

“Thanks!” murmured D’Artagnan, who, in fact, felt the earth sliding from under his feet, and the light of day turning to blackness around him; then he rolled upon the sand, without breath or strength. Fouquet hastened to the brink of the river, dipped some water in his hat, with which he bathed the temples of the musketeer, and introduced a few drop between his lips. D’Artagnan raised himself with difficulty, and looked about him with a wandering eye. He beheld Fouquet on his knees, with his wet hat in his hand, smiling upon him with ineffable sweetness. “You are not off, then?” cried he. “Oh, monsieur! the true king of royalty, in heart, in soul, is not Louis of the Louvre, or Philippe of Sainte-Marguerite; it is you, proscribed, 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, gloomily.

“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 us both get up, and ride slowly.”

“We can try,” said the captain. But they had scarcely charged the animal with this double load, when he began to stagger, and then with a great effort walked a few minutes, then staggered again, and sank down dead by 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 a swelling heart—“What a disgraceful day!”

They walked slowly the four leagues which separated them from the little wood behind which the carriage and escort were in waiting. When Fouquet perceived that sinister machine, he said to D’Artagnan, who cast down his eyes, ashamed of Louis XIV., “There is an idea that did not emanate from a brave man, Captain d’Artagnan; it is not yours. What are these gratings 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 the face, “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 Pelisson.”

“It shall be done.”

The carriage rolled through Nantes, and took the route to Angers.