gging away stout-heartedly in a perfectly vain, but praiseworthy
effort to save Leonie from certain death.

And then a sigh of relief went up.

A bay, stretched out, was flying like the wind, hoofs thundering on the
hard ground, tail streaming, as, urged by his master's heel and voice,
he strove to get to the tank before the runaway.

The distance and the speed were too great, the horse and kit were not
sufficiently familiar to allow the spectators to identify the one man
who seemed to have a plan in his head, and a horse under him.

The women strained their eyes in an endeavour to distinguish him, men
kept theirs glued to Leonie who was riding straight and apparently
making no effort to check the Devil, and policemen, forgetful of their
dignity, their status, and their red turbans, hung over the rails near
the grand-stand entrance with a riff-raff of taxi chauffeurs, pukka
chauffeurs and syce.

For the first two hundred yards across the brown grass of the Maidan,
Leonie thoroughly enjoyed the tearing gallop, having failed to grasp
the fact that the Devil was bolting; but after having spoken
soothingly, and pulled firmly without making any impression, somewhere
about the middle of the polo ground she awoke to the fact that
something had to be done.

"They're in it! No! missed, by Jove!"

The jockey bunched himself in an ecstasy of relief, and his mare danced
with a fellow-electrical feeling as the Devil, wheeling sharply from
the sparkling water in the tank, missed the lone tree by a foot; then
gathering fresh impetus from the ever-nearing sound of thudding hoofs,
tore towards the rails enclosing the two tracks.

They are not high, but they are fairly close together, and four in all,
and a horse, blind from fear or temper, is quite as likely to let you
down at the first as at the fourth.

But Jan Cuxson saw a gleam of hope.

Surely the runaway would slacken, surely no horse could possibly take
four fences at that terrific speed; and if he did slacken, then the
bay, as nimble as a cat in spite of his weight, would catch up, and
something would be done before they dashed headlong across the
tram-threaded, crowded Kidderpore Road.

Except for admiring her seat and seeming calm acceptance of her
inevitable and horrible end, he had not bothered about the girl as a
human being; but he frowned suddenly in a vague effort of recollection
when she stretched out her hand in a beckoning gesture for help to the
man sh