“What next?” he seemed to say to himself. “It is bad enough to be beaten before the herd; but I will have my revenge now.”
The brute’s roaring now was like the sound of a gong, hollow and ringing, but dreadful to listen to.
Archie met him boldly enough, intending to cut him in the face as he dashed past. In his excitement he dug his spurs into Tell, and next minute he was on the ground. The bull rushed by, but speedily wheeled, and came tearing back, sure now of blood in which to dip his ugly hoofs.
Archie had scrambled up, and was near a tree when the infuriated beast came down on the charge. Even at this moment of supreme danger Archie—he remembered this afterwards—could not help admiring the excessively business-like way the animal came at him to break him up. There was a terrible earnestness and a terrible satisfaction in his face or eyes; call it what you like, there it was.
Near as Archie was to the tree, to reach and get round it was impossible. He made a movement to get at his revolver; but it was too late to draw and fire, so at once he threw himself flat on the ground. The bull rushed over him, and came into collision with the tree trunk. This confused him for a second or two, and Archie had time to regain his feet. He looked wildly about for his horse. Tell was quietly looking on; he seemed to be waiting for his young master. But Archie never would have reached the horse alive had not brave Etheldene’s whip not been flicked with painful force across the bull’s eyes. That blow saved Archie, though the girl’s horse was wounded on the flank.
A minute after both were galloping speedily across the plain, all danger over; for the bull was still rooting around the tree, apparently thinking that his tormentors had vanished through the earth.
“How best can I thank you?” Archie was saying.
“By saying nothing about it,” was Etheldene’s answer.
“But you have saved my life, child.”