Not ten yards ahead Tietjens saw a tea-tray, the underneath of a black-lacquered tea-tray, gliding towards them: mathematically straight, just rising from the mist. He shouted: mad: the blood in his head. His shout was drowned by the scream of the horse: he had swung it to the left. The cart turned up: the horse emerged from the mist: head and shoulders: pawing. A stone sea-horse from the fountain of Versailles! Exactly that! Hanging in air for an eternity: the girl looking at it, leaning slightly forward.
The horse didn't come over backwards: he had loosened the reins. It wasn't there any more. The damndest thing that could happen! He had known it would happen. He said:
"We're all right now!" There was a crash and scraping: like twenty tea-trays: a prolonged sound. They must be scraping along the mud-guard of the invisible car. He had the pressure of the horse's mouth: the horse was away: going hell for leather. He increased the pressure. The girl said:
"I know I'm all right with you."
They were suddenly in bright sunlight: cart: horse: commonplace hedgerows. They were going uphill: a steep brae. He wasn't certain she hadn't said: "Dear!" or "My dear!" Was it possible after so short . . .? But it had been a long night. He was, no doubt, saving her life too. He increased his pressure on the horse's mouth gently: up to all his twelve stone: all his strength. The hill told too. Steep, white road between shaven grass banks!
Stop; damn you! Poor beast . . . The girl fell out of the cart. No! jumped clear! Out to the animal's head. It threw its head up. Nearly off her feet: she was holding the bit. . . . She couldn't! Tender mouth . . . afraid of horses. . . . He said:
"Horse cut!" Her face like a little white blancmange!
"Come quick," she said.
"I must hold a minute," he said, "might go off if I let go to get down. Badly cut?"
"Blood running down solid! Like an apron," she said.