Martin, beside himself with rage, lashed at the ravished flag with his whip, and made a great rent in its red centre. Useless fury! The umpires hastened up, and, removing the floral crown from the head of the Whitsun King, who was quivering with passion, placed it on the head of the victor.
"I don't want that!" cried the vanquished horseman, huskily, when they offered him a cap. "I mean to win back my wreath."
"You had better let it rest where it is," came a voice from the carriages.
"No need of that," replied Martin, defiantly. "Neither I nor my horse is tired. We will run, if we die for it. Eh, Ráró?"
The good steed, as if he understood what was said to him, pawed the ground and arched his head. The sworn umpires placed the youths in line again. Most of them, however, seeing the uselessness of competing with these two horsemen, fell out of the line and mingled among the spectators, so that scarce six others remained on the ground with the two rival heroes. All the more interesting, therefore, the contest; for there will be nothing to distract the attention of the onlookers.
Before engaging in the contest for the third time, the stranger-youth dismounted from his
horse, and cutting a supple willow sapling from a tree in the cemetery, stripped it of its leaves, and thrusting it into his whip-handle, mounted his horse again. Hitherto he had not once struck his steed.
But now, when the noble animal heard the sharp hiss of the thin willow wand, it began to rear. Standing on its hind legs, it fell to savagely worrying its bit, and careering round and round. The spectators began to fear for the youth, not that he would fall from his horse—that was out of the question—but that he would be too late for the contest, for the second report had now sounded, and the others were all awaiting the signal with loosely held reins, while his horse was curveting and pawing the ground.
When the third report resounded, the stranger suddenly gave his horse a cut with the willow switch, and let the reins hang loosely.
The smitten steed scudded off like a tempest. Wildly, madly, it skimmed the ground beneath its feet, as only a horse can fly when, panic-stricken, it ravishes its perishing rider along with it. None, no none, could get anywhere near it; even Martin was left many yards behind in mid-course. The crowd gaped in amazement at the fury of the steed and the foolhardiness of the rider, especially when, in the midst of his mad career, the long chaplet of flowers fell from the youth's head, and was trampled to pieces beneath the hoofs of the other horses panting after him. He himself did not notice the loss of his chaplet till he reached the goal, where he had to exert all his strength to rein up his maddened steed. He had reached the goal; but he had lost his crown.