e Cat looked
at the new Archangel ponies prancing about on the ground. They were four
beautiful blacks, and they saddled big enough and strong enough to eat
the Skidars' team and gallop away with the meal inside them.

"Blinkers again," said The Maltese Cat. "Good enough!"

"They're chargers-cavalry chargers!" said Kittiwynk, indignantly.
"They'll never see thirteen-three again."

"They've all been fairly measured, and they've all got their
certificates," said The Maltese Cat, "or they wouldn't be here. We must
take things as they come along, and keep your eyes on the ball."

The game began, but this time the Skidars were penned to their own end
of the ground, and the watching ponies did not approve of that.

"Faiz-Ullah is shirking--as usual," said Polaris, with a scornful grunt.

"Faiz-Ullah is eating whip," said Corks. They could hear the
leather-thonged polo-quirt lacing the little fellow's well-rounded
barrel. Then The Rabbit's shrill neigh came across the ground.

"I can't do all the work," he cried, desperately.

"Play the game--don't talk," The Maltese Cat whickered; and all the
ponies wriggled with excitement, and the soldiers and the grooms gripped
the railings and shouted. A black pony with blinkers had singled out old
Benami, and was interfering with him in every possible way. They could
see Benami shaking his head up and down, and flapping his under lip.

"There'll be a fall in a minute," said Polaris. "Benami is getting
stuffy."

The game flickered up and down between goal-post and goal-post, and the
black ponies were getting more confident as they felt they had the legs
of the others. The ball was hit out of a little scrimmage, and Benami
and The Rabbit followed it, Faiz-Ullah only too glad to be quiet for an
instant.

The blinkered black pony came up like a hawk, with two of his own side
behind him, and Benami's eye glittered as he raced. The question was
which pony should make way for the other, for each rider was perfectly
willing to risk a fall in a good cause. The black, who had been driven
nearly crazy by his blinkers, trusted to his weight and his temper; but
Benami knew how to apply his weight and how to keep his temper. They
met, and there was a cloud of dust. The black was lying on his side, all
the breath knocked out of his body. The Rabbit was a hundred yards
up the ground with the ball, and Benami was sitting down. He had slid
nearly ten yards on his tail, but he had had his reven