the grip upon their
breasts, pressing for ever till they went mad, running against
the walls of time, and never bursting free. Their great haunches
were smoothed and darkened with rain. But the darkness and
wetness of rain could not put out the hard, urgent, massive fire
that was locked within these flanks, never, never.

She went on, drawing near. She was aware of the great flash
of hoofs, a bluish, iridescent flash surrounding a hollow of
darkness. Large, large seemed the bluish, incandescent flash of
the hoof-iron, large as a halo of lightning round the knotted
darkness of the flanks. Like circles of lightning came the flash
of hoofs from out of the powerful flanks.

They were awaiting her again. They had gathered under an oak
tree, knotting their awful, blind, triumphing flanks together,
and waiting, waiting. They were waiting for her approach. As if
from a far distance she was drawing near, towards the line of
twiggy oak trees where they made their intense darkness,
gathered on a single bank.

She must draw near. But they broke away, they cantered round,
making a wide circle to avoid noticing her, and cantered back
into the open hillside behind her.

They were behind her. The way was open before her, to the
gate in the high hedge in the near distance, so she could pass
into the smaller, cultivated field, and so out to the high-road
and the ordered world of man. Her way was clear. She lulled her
heart. Yet her heart was couched with fear, couched with fear
all along.

Suddenly she hesitated as if seized by lightning. She seemed
to fall, yet found herself faltering forward with small steps.
The thunder of horses galloping down the path behind her shook
her, the weight came down upon her, down, to the moment of
extinction. She could not look round, so the horses thundered
upon her.

Cruelly, they swerved and crashed by on her left hand. She
saw the fierce flanks crinkled and as yet inadequate, the great
hoofs flashing bright as yet only brandished about her, and one
by one the horses crashed by, intent, working themselves up.

They had gone by, brandishing themselves thunderously about
her, enclosing her. They slackened their burst transport, they
slowed down, and cantered together into a knot once more, in the
corner by the gate and the trees ahead of her. They stirred,
they moved uneasily, they settled their uneasy flanks into one
group, one purpose. They were up against her.

Her heart was gone, she