It not being my place to speak, I said nothing, waiting to receive orders from him. And a moment later he again addressed me.
"You mousquetaires have always the best of horses and are proud of them. I know; I know. I have seen you riding races against each other at Versailles and Marly. And, for endurance, they will carry you far, both well and swiftly, in spite of your weight and trappings. Is it not so?"
"It is so, monseigneur," I answered, somewhat wonderingly, and not quite understanding what way this talk tended.
"How fast can you go? Say—a picked number of you—ten—twenty—go for two days?"
"A long way, monseigneur. Perhaps, allowing for rest for the animals, nearer forty than thirty leagues."
"So! Nearer forty than thirty leagues. 'Tis well."
Here he rose from his chair (I, of course, rising also), turned himself round, and gazed at a map of France hanging on the wall; ran, too, his finger along it from the Pyrenees in the direction of Marseilles, while, as he did so, he muttered continually, yet loud enough to be quite audible to me—
"He would cross there—there, surely. Fifteen days to quit Spain, two to quit Madrid—seventeen altogether. From the fifth. The fifth! This is the twelfth. Ten days still."