a
moment to ease the King and to recover his equilibrium, then he took the
pace up again as though nothing had changed. And his comrades of the
Household, when they saw this through their race-glasses, broke through
their serenity and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grasslands
and the coppices like a clarion, the grand rich voice of the Seraph
leading foremost and loudest--a cheer that rolled mellow and triumphant
down the cold bright air like the blast of trumpets, and thrilled on
Bertie's ear where he came down the course a mile away. It made his
heart beat quicker with a victorious headlong delight, as his knees
pressed closer into Forest King's flanks, and, half stirrupless like the
Arabs, he thundered forward to the greatest riding feat of his life. His
face was very calm still, but his blood was in tumult, the delirium of
pace had got on him, a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he
knew that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a
black sheet under him, and, in that killing speed, fence and hedge and
double and water all went by him like a dream, whirling underneath him
as the grey stretches, stomach to earth, over the level, and rose to
leap after leap.

For that instant's pause, when the stirrup broke, threatened to lose him
the race.

He was more than a length behind the Regent, whose hoofs as they dashed
the ground up sounded like thunder, and for whose herculean strength the
plough has no terrors; it was more than the lead to keep now, there was
ground to cover, and the King was losing like Wild Geranium. Cecil felt
drunk with that strong, keen, west wind that blew so strongly in his
teeth, a passionate excitation was in him, every breath of winter air
that rushed in its bracing currents round him seemed to lash him like a
stripe--the Household to look on and see him beaten!

Certain wild blood that lay latent in Cecil under the tranquil
gentleness of temper and of custom, woke, and had the mastery; he set
his teeth hard, and his hands clenched like steel on the bridle. "Oh! my
beauty, my beauty," he cried, all unconsciously half aloud as they clear
the thirty-sixth fence; "kill me if you like, but don't _fail_ me!"

As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with all his
hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the stretching
stride stretched farther yet with lightning spontaneity, every fibre
strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnifi