For quite ten minutes she stood talking to the mare, until the men began to fidget and grumble and Zarah to laugh; then she spoke sharply to the groom who held the rope halter.
“Hold on tight, I am going to take the saddle off.”
Zarah made a quick step forward as Helen patted the satiny flank, working her hands towards the heavy buckle. There came a yell from everyone as she seized it and hung on to it until it was undone, just as the groom hung on to the rope halter, despite the slashing hoofs and the mare’s violent efforts to be rid of these people who so tormented her.
Helen whipped the light saddle off the mare’s blood-stained back and held it up, turning it first to Zarah, who laughed, and then to the men, who literally howled execrations.
“You brutes!” she cried. “You cowardly brutes! Look! The point of a nail, which pricked the mare each time the saddle was touched. Come here.” The head groom ran forward, salaaming, protesting that he knew nothing about it all, speaking the truth, for a wonder. “You say you did not saddle the mare. Then why don’t you look after the men under you? Take it!” She flung the wisp of a saddle full in the man’s face, so that the buckle cut his cheek, upon which the place resounded with shouts of joy and peals of laughter, which stopped when she raised her hand.
“I ride her bare-back,” she cried, and smiled at the men when, with the Arab’s proverbial inconstancy, they yelled encouragement.
She stood patting the mare, stroking the quivering back, lightly touching the superficial wound until the animal became accustomed to pressure on the spot; then she took the halter and trotted the beautiful beast down the full length of the plateau, whilst the men sighed with joy at the sight.
“A babe can lead a horse,” scoffed the equivalent of a British stable-lad; “let us wait until she essays to scramble to the back, even as a monkey scrambles up a pole.”
But Helen had no intention of emulating the monkey; she intended riding that mare if she died in the attempt. She took the beautiful creature round the full circle, caused by the men sitting in a ring, at a trot, then at a gentle canter, then caught the mane and vaulted across the bare back.
“Now, God,” cried Helen, “help me now!”