“Great Heavens!” cried Mr Elthorne.
“Wait a moment, I’ll make her leave go,” cried Dana, raising her whip to strike the animal between the ears.
“Stop!” cried Beck sharply, as he caught the mare’s bit with his left hand, standing firmly the while, but with his face drawn with pain. “If you do that she’ll crush the bones.”
Isabel uttered a faint sob, and turned white, while Sir Cheltnam sprang from his horse and stepped close to her.
“Don’t be frightened,” he whispered, giving additional pain now to the young sailor in the shape of that which was mental.
Isabel paid no heed to him or his words, but stood gazing wildly at the brave young fellow whose hand was gripped as if in a vice by the powerful jaws, but who, beyond knitting his brows and turning pale, made no sign.
“Here, Alison,” cried Mr Elthorne, “take the other side of the mare’s muzzle. She’ll crush his hand.”
“No, no,” said the young man, quickly. “She’ll let go soon. Be quiet, all of you, or you’ll startle her.”
The young man’s words were full of the authoritative tone of one accustomed to command in emergencies; but his voice shook a little at the last, for he was oppressed by a deadly feeling of sickness which he fought hard to resist, while the group closed round him, and there was a low buzz of excitement through which came the trampling of other horses, as the grooms led them round from the stable yard.
Tom Beck felt that he could hold out no longer. He had tried and manfully to combat the physical pain at a time when the mental was agonising, for he had seen the young baronet approach Isabel and whisper to her, and he had felt that any increase of the terrible grip would mean a horrible mutilation, and the utter blasting of his career and his hopes. Despair was combining with the sensation of faintness; and with the scene around him growing dim and the excited voices beginning to sound muffled and strange, nature was rapidly conquering the education of a brave man who had been schooled to face danger unmoved; he turned his eyes wildly to where Isabel stood.