"Oh!" said he, "I _will_ arrive at the same time that he does, if I am unable to precede him." And he doubled his speed, and spurred on his horse, which, at every station, stopped dripping with blood and sweat, or tumbled down exhausted. At every station he learned that the courier had passed almost as swiftly as himself, but he always gained some few minutes, and that sustained his strength. Those whom he passed upon the way, leaving them far behind, pitied, in spite of themselves, the beautiful young man, pale faced and haggard, who flew on thus, and took neither rest, nor food, dripping with sweat, despite the bitter cold, and whose parched lips could only frame the words: "A horse! a horse! quick, there, a horse!" And, in fact, exhausted, with no strength but that supplied him by his heart, and maddened more and more by the rapidity of his course and the feeling of danger, Gaston felt his head turn, his temples throb, and the perspiration of his limbs was tinged with blood. Choked by the thirst and dryness of his throat, at Ancenis he drank a glass of water: it was the first moment he had lost during sixteen hours, and yet the accursed courier was still an hour and a half in advance. In eighty leagues Gaston had only gained some forty or fifty minutes. The night was drawing in rapidly, and Gaston, ever expecting to see some object appear on the horizon, tried to pierce the obscurity with his bloodshot glances; on he went, as in a dream, thinking he heard the ringing of bells, the roar of cannon, and the roll of drums. His brain was full of mournful strains and inauspicious sounds; he lived no longer as a man, but his fever kept him up, he flew as it were in the air. On, and still on. About eight o'clock at night he perceived Nantes at length upon the horizon, like a dark mass from out the midst of which some scattered lights were shining starlike in the gloom. He tried to breathe, and thinking his cravat was choking him, he tore it off and threw it on the road. Thus, mounted on his black horse, wrapped in his black cloak, and long ago bareheaded (his hat had fallen off), Gaston was like some fiendish cavalier bound to the witches' Sabbath. On reaching the gates of Nantes his horse stumbled, but Gaston did not lose his stirrups, pulled him up sharply, and driving the spurs into his sides, he made him recover himself. The night was dark, no one appeared upon the ramparts, the very sentinels were hidden in the gloom, it seemed like a deserted city. But as he passed the gate a sentinel said something which Gaston did not even hear. He held on his way. At the Rue du Chateau his horse stumbled and fell, this time to rise no more. What mattered it to Gaston now?--he had arrived. On he went on foot--his limbs were strained and deadened, yet he felt no fatigue, he held the paper crumpled in his hand. One thing, however, astonished him, and that was meeting no one in so populous a quarter.