'It is safe from kites now,' said Lewis. 'Throw it up, Miss Tweedie.'
The next instant a skimming flight had ended in a covert of thorns and Lewis was on his mare ready to start.
'It wouldn't head for the open again, I bet, he said, 'they get as 'cute as an old fox after a time. To your left, please, that rise yonder is Hodinuggur.'
'But we might ride again, surely? It would give the others time to come up, began Rose, fiercely bitten with the game.
'Best not. The ground here is bad going; all littered with bricks. And you could barely hold Shâhzâd that last time. A snaffle is hard work--for a lady.'
Rose refrained from open retort. Lewis had given her a morning's amusement, and she owed him something; for all that, she made a mental determination to ride partridge as often as she chose with a snaffle. His objection was only part of that wholesale depreciation--here a partridge buzzed out of a bush, and partly from impulse, partly from sheer opposition, she gave Shâhzâd the rein. A bit of bravado in which she reckoned without the excited horse. Ere she had gone fifty yards, she realised it had the bit between its teeth. What was worse, she saw that Lewis realised it also.
'Look out for bricks,' he called, spurring Bronzewing alongside for a moment, 'and don't try to follow when the bird breaks back, as it is sure to do, for cover.'
The words were still on his lips, when the partridge towered and turned. Shâhzâd, no novice at such tricks, pulled up short, nearly throwing Rose over his ears. Then, with a bound, he dashed off sideways, catching Bronzewing on the flank as she swerved, and throwing her rider's foot from the stirrup. The mare staggered, pulled herself together smartly, set her hoof on a loose brick, and came down heavily; while Rose, tugging vainly at her beast, went sailing away to the horizon, with the memory of that crashing fall seeming to paralyse her strength. When she did manage to turn, Bronzewing was on her feet; but her rider lay where he had fallen. The girl's heart stood still an instant in that utmost fear which will come first--was he dead? Yet, as she galloped back she told herself, fiercely, that it was impossible; people fell so often, and did not hurt themselves. But not, surely, to lie as he lay, with eyes wide open and one arm under him as if he had pitched head-foremost. Rose had never seen an accident before, and at first all her helpfulness seemed lost in a senseless desire to gather him up in her arms and hold him safe. Then the thought of her own foolishness came to her aid. He had been right! Women were no good!' A man would have known what to do, and as she thought these things, she searched, comically enough, in his pockets for a flask, as if unconsciously reverting to the first resource of the male animal; but she could find none, and there was no water. What was to be done, save to chafe his hands and call to him vainly, while a perfect agony of negation clamoured against her growing fear. He could not be dead! He was such a good rider. He must have fallen before and not been killed. Why should he be killed this time? He could not be killed on such a bright sunny morning--when they had been so happy--when he had been so kind. Ridiculous, trivial little thoughts, such as make up the sum of such scenes.
Finally she rose, resolved by her very despair. Water and help she must have. If no nearer than the palace, then to the palace she must go. Shâhzâd had taken advantage of liberty to seek a wheat field, but Bronzewing would carry her with the stirrup over. The mare, however, distrusting strangers, sidled off, still circling faithfully round her master. Then the girl's hopes and fears centred themselves on the immediate necessity for success. She coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, forgetting all else, till all of a sudden Bronzewing paused to whinny, and Rose, looking round instinctively, recognised the magnitude of her past despair in the light of her great relief as she saw Lewis Gordon, raised on one elbow, looking at her in a dazed sort of way. She was on her knees beside him in a minute, confessing the past fear she had so strenuously denied while it existed.
'I thought you were dead!' she cried. 'I thought you were dead.' She was trembling and shaking all over, quite visibly, and he gave an unsteady laugh.