mbled so that I could see her clenched hands flutter like
segans.[1] It was not excitement, but to my mind as though some vital
powerful force had taken possession of her body and shook it, as an
aspen quivers in a gale.

The power seemed to grow stronger and stronger as she spoke, until with
her word it seemed to break free and envelop us.

Where I have written "Now" she leaned rigidly towards Chieftain and
almost hissed, so sharply came a word between her teeth. With some
such sound, I think, will the devil unshackle his hounds. Well for me
that my horses were rugging at the hedge, or I had never been troubled
more with headache.

For the stallion reared his huge bulk into the air with a scream of
brute rage. I have never heard such a sound since, and never wish to
again. He turned like an eel, his mouth agape, and the veins round his
nostrils like cord. His great gleaming teeth snapped like a trap at
his rider's legs, and snapped again after he had a blow on the head
that might have stunned him, and at the hollow sound of it I felt my
teeth take an edge to them. Twice he reared and fell backwards, and
twice Dan was astride as he rose. I could see the sweat running down
his face and the bulging of the muscles as his knees pressed and clung
to the heaving spume-spattered flanks. I think he knew he was fighting
for his life, but his smile seemed graven on his face, though it looked
like the smile of a man in sore distress. I knew every muscle felt
red-hot, and time would give the victory to the stronger brute. And
then I saw the change like a lightning-flash. Dan's shoulders haunched
themselves, his head was low and stretched forward, and a look of the
most devilish ferocity came over his face, his lips were pulled down,
and his eyes almost hidden under the bunched and corrugated brows.

There was a knotted rope rein in his hand, and his arm, brown and bare
to the elbow, and hard as an oak branch, rose, and I saw his teeth
clench till the muscles on his jaws stood out like crab-apples.

"Ye wid fecht wi' me," he crooned--"me, damn ye, me." At every
reiterated word the rein fell, and the weals rose on the stallion's
neck and flank, and he snorted and screamed with rage.

"Woman," said I, having led the other horses away and returned--"woman
or devil, whatever you are, ye have made a horse mad this day, and now
the man's mad. Will ye put an end to this business before worse
happens, for the horse is wo