“I, too,” cried Mousqueton, “saw them also.”

“Ah! ah! have we overtaken them?”

“Good! a dead horse!” said D’Artagnan, pulling up his horse, which shied; “it seems their horses, too, are breaking down, as well as ours.”

“I seem to hear the noise of a troop of horsemen,” exclaimed Porthos, leaning over his horse’s mane.

“Impossible.”

“They appear to be numerous.”

“Then ‘tis something else.”

“Another horse!” said Porthos.

“Dead?”