A thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression.
"Nipper's beat for the distance!" came the cry.
"Brown horse wins! Green jacket loses!"
The Grand Stand saw it. Chukkers saw it, too. His eyes were fixed on his rival's face like the talons of a vulture in his prey. They never stirred; they never lifted. He came pressing up alongside his enemy—insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. Silver could have screamed. That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her, fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing it, obsessing it.
And the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone. It seemed to be contagious. Swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing.
"He's swearing at him!" cried the White Hat, aghast.
"B—— shame!" shouted another.
"Tryin' to rattle the lad!"
And a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens.
To Silver it was no longer a race: it was the world-struggle, old as time—Right against Wrong, Light against Dark. He was watching it like God; and, like God, he could do nothing. His voice was lost in his throat. Outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea in travail. A tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within him.