“D——n it all! Le Bretton!” I yelled, as the pony broke for the second time, “can’t you keep your wife away!”
They did let me alone after that—turned off the road and took a scoop across the plain, so as to come up with me at the finish—and I pulled myself together to do the last couple of miles. I could see that Cashmere gate and the Delhi walls ahead of me; ’pon my soul I felt as if they were defying me and despising me, just standing waiting there under the blazing sky, and they never seemed to get any nearer. It was like the first night of a fever, the whizzing of the wheels, the ding-dong of the pony’s hoofs, the silence all round, the feeling of stress and insane hurrying on, the throbbing of my head, and the scorching heat. I’ll swear no fever I’ve ever had was worse than that last two miles.
As I reached the Delhi walls I took one look at the clock. There was barely a minute left.
“By Jove!” I gasped, “I’m done!”
I shouted and yelled to the pony like a madman, to keep up what heart was left in the wretched little brute, holding on to him for bare life, with my arms and legs straight out in front of me. The gray wall and the blinding road rushed by me like a river—I scarcely knew what happened—I couldn’t think of anything but the ticking of the clock that I was somehow trying to count, till there came the bang of a pistol over my head.
It was the Cashmere gate, and I had thirteen seconds in hand.
There was never anything more heard of the bagman. He can, if he likes, soothe his conscience with the reflection that he was worth a thousand pounds to me.
But Mrs. Le Bretton never quite forgave me.