"Well then, I will give the story, in true heroic style," answered Cinq Mars, tossing the book from him. "Thou dost remember, O my friend!" he continued, imitating the language of the romance he had just been reading, "how stormy was the night, when last I parted from thee, at the old Chateau of Mesnil St. Loup; and if the thunder clouds passed away, and left the sky clear and moonlighted, it was but to be succeeded by a still more violent tempest. For, long after thou wert snugly housed at Troyes, De Thou and myself were galloping on through the storm of night. The rain fell, the lightning glanced, the thunder rolled over head, and the way seemed doubly long, and the forest doubly dreary, when by a sudden blaze of the red fire of heaven, I descried some one, mounted on a white horse, come rapidly towards us." "Come, come, Cinq Mars!" exclaimed Fontrailles, "for grace, leave the land of romance--remember I have a long story to tell, and not much time to tell it in. Truce with imagination therefore, for we have more serious work before us." "It's truth--it's truth, thou unbelieving Jew," cried Cinq Mars. "No romance, I can assure you. Well, soon as this white horseman saw two others wending their way towards him, he suddenly reined in his beast, and turning round, galloped off as hard as he could go. Now, if curiosity be a failing, it is one I possess in an eminent degree; so, clapping spurs to my horse, after him I went, full faster than he ran away. As for De Thou, he calls out after me, loud enough to drown the thunder, crying, 'Cinq Mars, where are you going? In God's name stop--We know the place is full of banditti--If these are robbers, they may murder you,'--and so on; but finding that I did not much heed, he also was smitten with a galloping fit, and so we followed each other, like a procession, though with no procession pace: the white horseman first--I next--and De Thou last--with about a hundred yards between each of us--going all at full speed, to the great peril of our necks, and no small danger of our heads from the boughs. I was best mounted however, on my stout black horse Sloeberry--you know Sloeberry;--and so distancing De Thou all to nothing, I began to come closer to my white horseman, who, finding that he could not get off, gradually pulled in, and let me come up with him. 'Well, Sir,' said he directly, with all possible coolness--'you have ridden hard to-night.'--'In truth, I have, my man,' answered I, 'and so have you, and I should much like to know why you did so.'--'For the same reason that you did, I suppose,' replied the boy, for such it was who spoke.--'And what reason is that?' I asked.--'Because we both liked it, I suppose,' replied he.--'That may be,' answered I; 'but we have all a reason for our likings.'--'True, Sir,' said the boy, 'and I dare say your's was a good one; pray, believe that mine was so also,'--All the time he spoke, he kept looking round at me, till at last he got a good sight of my face.