“The lights again! this time I, too, saw them,” said Porthos.

“On! on! forward! forward!” cried D’Artagnan, in his stentorian voice; “we shall laugh over all this in five minutes.”

And they darted on anew. The horses, excited by pain and emulation, raced over the dark road, in the midst of which was now seen a moving mass, denser and more obscure than the rest of the horizon.