The Three Musketeers

horses could carry them, but without adding another word.
    On the evening of the twenty-fifth, as they were entering Arras, and as d'Artagnan was dismounting at the inn of the Golden Harrow to drink a glass of wine, a horseman came out of the post yard, where he had just had a relay, started off at a gallop, and with a fresh horse took the road to Paris. At the moment he passed through the gateway into the street, the wind blew open the cloak in which he was wrapped, although it was in the month of August, and lifted his hat, which the traveler seized with his hand the moment it had left his head, pulling it eagerly over his eyes.
    D'Artagnan, who had his eyes fixed upon this man, became very pale, and let his glass fall.
    "What is the matter, monsieur?" said Planchet. "Oh, come, gentlemen, my master is ill!"
    The three friends hastened toward d'Artagnan, who, instead of being ill, ran toward his horse. They stopped him at the door.
    "Well, where the devil are you going now?" cried Athos.
    "It is he!" cried d'Artagnan, pale with anger, and with the sweat on his brow, "it is he! let me overtake him!"
    "He? What he?" asked Athos.
    "He, that man!"
    "What man?"
    "That cursed man, my evil genius, whom I have always met with when threatened by some misfortune, he who accompanied that horrible woman when I met her for the first time, he whom I was seeking when I offended our Athos, he whom I saw on the very morning Madame Bonacieux was abducted. I have seen him; that is he! I recognized him when the wind blew upon his cloak."
    "The devil!" said Athos, musingly.
    "To saddle, gentlemen! to saddle! Let us pursue him, and we shall overtake him!"
    "My dear friend," said Aramis, "remember that he goes in an opposite direction from that in which we are going, that he has a fresh horse, and ours are fatigued, so that we shall disable our own horses without even a chance of overtaking him. Let the man go, d'Artagnan; let us save the woman."
    "Monsieur, monsieur!" cried a hostler, running out and looking after the stranger, "monsieur, here is a paper which dropped out of your hat! Eh, monsieur, eh!"
    "Friend," said d'Artagnan, "a half-pistole for that paper!"
    "My faith, monsieur, with great pleasure! Here it is!"
    The hostler, enchanted with the good day's work he had done, returned to the yard. D'Artagnan unfolded the paper.
    "Well?" eagerly demanded all his three friends.
    "Nothing but one word!" said d'Artagnan.
    "Yes," said Aramis, "but that one word is the name of some town or village."
    "Armentieres," read Porthos; "Armentieres? I don't know such a place."
    "And that name of a town or village is written in her hand!" cried Athos.
    "Come on, come on!" said d'Artagnan; "let us keep that paper carefully, perhaps I have not thrown away my half-pistole. To horse, my friends, to horse!"
    And the four friends flew at a gallop along the road to Bethune.

61 THE CARMELITE CONVENT AT BETHUNE
    Great criminals bear about them a kind of predestination which makes them surmount all obstacles, which makes them escape all dangers, up to the moment which a wearied Providence has marked as the rock of their impious fortunes.
    It was thus with Milady. She escaped the cruisers of both nations, and arrived at Boulogne without accident.
    When landing at Portsmouth, Milady was an Englishwoman whom the persecutions of the French drove from La Rochelle; when landing at Boulogne, after a two days' passage, she passed for a Frenchwoman whom the English persecuted at Portsmouth out of their hatred for France.
    Milady had, likewise, the best of passports—her beauty, her noble appearance, and the liberality with which she distributed her pistoles. Freed from the usual formalities by the affable smile and gallant manners of an old governor of the port, who kissed her hand, she only remained long enough at Boulogne to put into the post a letter, conceived in the following terms:
    "To his Eminence Monseigneur the Cardinal Richelieu, in his camp before La Rochelle.
    "Monseigneur, Let your Eminence be reassured. His Grace the Duke of Buckingham WILL NOT SET OUT for France.
    "MILADY DE ——
    "BOULOGNE, evening of the twenty-fifth.
    "P.S.—According to the desire of your Eminence, I report to the convent of the Carmelites at Bethune, where I will await your orders."
    Accordingly, that same evening Milady commenced her journey. Night overtook her; she stopped, and slept at an inn. At five o'clock the next morning she again proceeded, and in three hours after