en the darkness fell utterly; the
mighty heart failed; he could do no more--and his rider's hand slackened
and turned him gently backward; his rider's voice sounded very low and
quiet to those who, seeing that every effort was hopeless, surged and
clustered round his saddle.

"Something ails the King," said Cecil calmly; "he is fairly knocked
off his legs. Some Vet must look to him; ridden a yard farther he will
fall."

Words so gently spoken!--yet in the single minute that alone had passed
since they had left the Starter's Chair, a lifetime seemed to have been
centered, alike to Forest King and to his owner.

The field swept on with a rush, without the favorite; and the Prix de
Dames was won by the French bay L'Etoile.

CHAPTER X.

"PETITE REINE."

When a young Prussian had shot himself the night before for roulette
losses, the event had not thrilled, startled, and impressed the gay
Baden gathering one tithe so gravely and so enduringly as did now the
unaccountable failure of the great Guards' Crack.

Men could make nothing of it save the fact that there was "something
dark" somewhere. The "painted quid" had done its work more thoroughly
than Willon and the welsher had intended; they had meant that the opiate
should be just sufficient to make the favorite off his speed, but not to
make effects so palpable as these. It was, however, so deftly prepared
that under examination no trace could be found of it, and the result of
veterinary investigation, while it left unremoved the conviction that
the horse had been doctored, could not explain when or how, or by what
medicines. Forest King had simply "broken down"; favorites do this on
the flat and over the furrow from an overstrain, from a railway journey,
from a touch of cold, from a sudden decay of power, from spasm, or from
vertigo; those who lose by them may think what they will of "roping," or
"painting," or "nobbling," but what can they prove?

Even in the great scandals that come before the autocrats of the Jockey
Club, where the tampering is clearly known, can the matter ever be
really proved and sifted? Very rarely. The trainer affects stolid
unconsciousness or unimpeachable respectability; the hapless stable-boy
is cross-examined, to protest innocence and ignorance, and most likely
protest them rightly; he is accused, dismissed, and ruined; or some
young jock has a "caution" out everywhere against him, and never again
can get a mount even for the commo