"They're off!" Guy taking the lead; well over the first two fences, fair hunting ones; the third is a teaser—an ugly black bulfinch, with a ditch on the landing side, and a drop into a plowed field. The chestnut's devil is thoroughly roused by this time. When within sixty yards of the fence, he puts on a rush that even his rider's mighty muscles can not check: his impetus would send him through a castle wall; but he hardly rises at the leap, taking it, too, where there is a network of growers—a crash that might be heard in the grand stand—and horse and man are rolling in the field beyond.
Flora Bellasys strikes her foot angrily with her riding-whip, and turns very pale.
Ten lengths behind, the mare comes up, well in hand, and slips through the bulfinch without a mistake—hardly with an effort—just at the only place where you can see daylight through the blackthorn.
What is Guy doing? Even in that thundering fall he has never let the reins go. Horse and rider struggle up together. A dozen arms are ready to lift him into the saddle, and a cheery voice says in his ear, "Hold up, squire; keep him a going, and you'll catch the captain yet!" He hardly hears the words though, for his head is whirling, and he feels strangely sick and faint; but before he has gone a hundred yards his face has settled into its habitual resolute calmness, only there is a thin thread of blood creeping from under his cap, and his brow is bent and lowering.
A fall, which would have taken the fight out of most horses, has only steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say, "The race is not over yet."
They are over the brook without a scramble. Forrester still leads, riding patiently and well. He knows better than to force the running, even with the difference in weight, for the going is too heavy quite to suit his mare.
As Livingstone passed the spot where Miss Raymond was stationed, he turned half round in his saddle, and looked curiously in her face. She did not even know he was near. All her soul was in her eyes, that were gazing after Forrester with an anxiety so disproportioned to the occasion that her cousin fairly started.
"Poor child," he said to himself, all his angry feelings changing, "she seems to have set her heart so upon winning, it would be sad if she were disappointed. No one has much on it; shall I try 'Captain Armstrong' for once? It would make her very happy. Bar accidents, I must win. They do not know that the chestnut has not extended himself yet."
We lose sight of the horses for a little. When we see them a gain, the mare has decidedly gained ground; and, to our astonishment, the Axeine swerves, and refuses at rather an easy fence.
Miss Bellasys' cheek flushes this time. She goes off at a sharp canter through a gate that takes her into a field where the horses must pass her close; several of her attendants follow. Charley comes up, looking rather more excited and happy than usual. He has made the pace better for the last half mile, and still seems going at his ease. More than a distance behind is the chestnut, evidently on bad terms with his jockey; he is in a white lather of foam, and changes his leg twice as he approaches. Guy has his face turned slightly aside as he nears the spot where Miss Bellasys waits for him, in the midst of her body-guard. For the first time since the race began, her voice was heard, cutting the air with its clear mocking tones, like the edge of a Damascus sabre, "The chestnut wins—hard held!"