four o’clock in the
afternoon
Pale , at times inundated with boiling sweats , then again dry and icy , he flogged his horses till the blood streamed from their sides . Porthos , whose dominant fault was not sensibility , groaned at this . Thus traveled they on for eight long hours , and then arrived at Orleans . It was four o'clock in the afternoon . Aramis , on observing this , judged that nothing showed pursuit to be a possibility . It would be without example that a troop capable of taking him and Porthos should be furnished with relays sufficient to perform forty leagues in eight hours . Thus , admitting pursuit , which was not at all manifest , the fugitives were five hours in advance of their pursuers .