four
o'clock in the afternoon
Pale , at times inundated with boiling sweats , then again dry and icy , he beat his horses and made the blood stream 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 demonstrated pursuit to be possible . 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 .