Any one else he would have resisted, but not Hollyhock, not his beloved mistress. He knew exactly how to accomplish the exploit required of him. He bounded a bit back, then a bit forward, then sprang across with a noble endeavour, and reached the opposite bank.
They were both in safety.
'Oh, but you are good, Lightning Speed,' said Hollyhock. 'You have done the worst now, and shall have an apple for your pains. Then we must turn back; but the backward leap will not be so dangerous by half as was the forward.'
By this time Lightning Speed felt as excited as his young mistress. He could scarcely bring himself to eat the apple, so anxious he seemed to complete his task and get back to the safety and shelter of the gorge. He was not frightened now, not he. He would have leaped double that distance if he could for Hollyhock the brave. He prepared himself for the return leap. He sprang out over the awful chasm.
But what ailed Hollyhock herself? The horse showed no fear; but the girl trembled and reeled. Just as they had almost reached the opposite side, and, as far as Lightning Speed was concerned, were in absolute safety, Hollyhock found herself slipping from the saddle. The horse was safe as safe could be; but she—she had slipped and rolled headlong down the steep bank. The aching in her head was so tremendous that she had absolutely no strength to keep her seat. She felt herself falling, falling, bruised and battered by sharp rocks. And then all was a merciful blank. She knew no more.
When she came to her senses again she sat up with a great shiver, and found herself perilously perched on a narrow ledge of rock, while away above her head Lightning Speed looked down at her and whinnied in the deepest distress. To get down to her, to help, to reach her, was for him impossible. His whole heart was hers; but he could do nothing for her, nothing at all!
She saw his gallant head looking down at her, and she managed to call out to him, 'Go home, my bonnie Lightning Speed; go home, and get some one to bring ropes for poor Hollyhock. Oh, but you are a brave and noble beastie!'
The horse was puzzled whether to obey or not. Home to him was not the Palace of the Kings, but his own comfortable loose-box at The Garden. The stable would be locked now; but he might go to the front-door and scrabble with his feet and make a loud and piercing whinny. Then, of a surety, the Lennox man, Hollyhock's father, would come out, and he, Lightning Speed, would lead him to the scene of danger.
Now there was one fact that both girl and horse forgot. In order to get out and in Hollyhock had taken pains early in the day to secure the gate keys of the Palace of the Kings; but both horse and girl forgot that the gates of The Garden, the beloved home of Lightning Speed, would be locked until early in the morning. It would be all in vain for Lightning Speed to try to surmount those high iron gates, in order to secure the services of George Lennox.
But while Hollyhock thus clung desperately to the narrow ledge of rock, which was at least twenty feet down from the top of the famous leap, and forty feet above the roaring torrent of water, Magsie had not been idle. She wasted no time in waking the house. She concluded at once that Miss Hollyhock was away, because Lightning Speed was away. In a flash she guessed why the girl had done no feat that day. She also felt almost certain where she would take Lightning Speed. For horse and rider to leap a chasm of twelve feet in the bright moonlight would be a fine act of courage, a mighty act, just the thing that Miss Hollyhock would attempt, and Magsie now recalled with dismay certain hints about the gorge dropped by that intrepid young horse-woman.