ut foot to ground. It was then that
Powell, a quiet and level-headed man, as a rule, became inspired,
and played a stroke that sometimes comes off successfully after long
practice. He took his stick in both hands, and, standing up in his
stirrups, swiped at the ball in the air, Munipore fashion. There was one
second of paralysed astonishment, and then all four sides of the ground
went up in a yell of applause and delight as the ball flew true (you
could see the amazed Archangels ducking in their saddles to dodge the
line of flight, and looking at it with open mouths), and the regimental
pipes of the Skidars squealed from the railings as long as the pipers
had breath. Shikast heard the stroke; but he heard the head of the stick
fly off at the same time. Nine hundred and ninety-nine ponies out of a
thousand would have gone tearing on after the ball with a useless player
pulling at their heads; but Powell knew him, and he knew Powell; and the
instant he felt Powell's right leg shift a trifle on the saddle-flap, he
headed to the boundary, where a native officer was frantically waving a
new stick. Before the shouts had ended, Powell was armed again.

Once before in his life The Maltese Cat had heard that very same stroke
played off his own back, and had profited by the confusion it wrought.
This time he acted on experience, and leaving Bamboo to guard the goal
in case of accidents, came through the others like a flash, head and
tail low--Lutyens standing up to ease him--swept on and on before the
other side knew what was the matter, and nearly pitched on his head
between the Archangels' goal-post as Lutyens kicked the ball in after
a straight scurry of a hundred and fifty yards. If there was one thing
more than another upon which The Maltese Cat prided himself, it was on
this quick, streaking kind of run half across the ground. He did
not believe in taking balls round the field unless you were clearly
overmatched. After this they gave the Archangels five-minuted football;
and an expensive fast pony hates football because it rumples his temper.
Who's Who showed himself even better than Polaris in this game. He did
not permit any wriggling away, but bored joyfully into the scrimmage
as if he had his nose in a feed-box and was looking for something nice.
Little Shikast jumped on the ball the minute it got clear, and every
time an Archangel pony followed it, he found Shikast standing over it,
asking what was the matter.

"If we