"That's a trooper's mount if ever I saw one," said Dennis. And as the mare, with nostrils distended and ears set forward, neighed loudly, he jumped out of his concealment and caught her rein.
"Whoa, little lady—steady!" he said soothingly. "Ah, if you could only speak, and tell me where you have come from!"
He had some difficulty in bringing her to a stand, for she was quivering from the effects of recent alarm; and he saw a red smear on the leather wallets, and the saddle flap on the near side had been cut by a bullet.
As he placed his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up, rifle fire suddenly opened from somewhere beyond the ridge of the wheat. He was down again in an instant, and leading the mare cautiously forward through the corn.
Craning his neck above the waving grain, he saw the white line of a trench farther down the slope, and beyond it, retiring at a hand gallop, a row of brown dots in extended order, which he knew to be British cavalry!
A glance had shown him that there was a machine-gun in the trench, and his course was clear now. He must warn the horsemen if they did not know it already; and, turning the mare, he led her back out of sight of the enemy and, mounting, rode off in a wide detour before he put her to top speed across the open.
The sergeant who had ridden her was lying on his back at the edge of the cornfield, and the greyness of his face told that he was dead.
"Now, my beauty!" he cried, with a squeeze of his knees. And away he dashed, taking a barbed wire entanglement like a bird, and coming up with a little bunch of horsemen re-forming in a hollow.
They were Dragoon Guards, and with them was a detachment of the Deccan Horse, whose lance-points and steel helmets twinkled in the sunshine, with here and there a turban among them.
Horses and men betrayed their eagerness, for it was the first time since the dark days of 1914 that the cavalry had had their chance.