Chapter XXXVII.

The Two Lighters.
D'Artagnan had set off; Fouquet likewise was gone, and with a rapidity which doubled the tender interest of his friends.

The first moments of this journey, or better say, this flight, were troubled by a ceaseless dread of every horse and carriage to be seen behind the fugitive.

It was not natural, in fact, if Louis XIV.

was determined to seize this prey, that he should allow it to escape; the young lion was already accustomed to the chase, and he had bloodhounds sufficiently clever to be trusted.
But insensibly all fears were dispersed; the surintendant, by hard traveling, placed such a distance between himself and his persecutors, that no one of them could reasonably be expected to overtake him.