“Faith is a beautiful sight!” said Bertie, with solemnity.
“Offered on the altar of the Jews!” laughed the Seraph, as he turned him away from the breakfast table by the shoulders. “Thanks, Beauty; I've 'four figures' on you, and you'll be good enough to win them for me. Let's have a look at the King. They are just going to walk him over.”
Cecil complied; while he lounged away with the others to the stables, with a face of the most calm, gentle, weary indifference in the world, the thought crossed him for a second of how very near he was to the wind. The figures in his betting-book were to the tune of several thousands, one way or another. If he won this morning it would be all right, of course; if he lost—even Beauty, odd mixture of devil-may-care and languor though he was, felt his lips grow, for the moment, hot and cold by turns as he thought of that possible contingency.
The King looked in splendid condition; he knew well enough what was up again, knew what was meant by that extra sedulous dressing-down, that setting muzzle that had been buckled on him some nights previous, the limitation put to his drink, the careful trial spins in the gray of the mornings, the conclusive examination of his plates by a skillful hand; he knew what was required of him, and a horse in nobler condition never stepped out in body clothing, as he was ridden slowly down on to the plains of Iffesheim. The Austrian Dragoon, a Count and a Chamberlain likewise, who was to ride his only possible rival, the French horse L'Etoile, pulled his tawny silken mustaches as he saw the great English hero come up the course, and muttered to himself, “L'affaire est finie.” L'Etoile was a brilliant enough bay in his fashion, but Count Ruteroth knew the measure of his pace and powers too thoroughly to expect him to live against the strides of the Guards' gray.
“My beauty, won't you cut those German fellows down!” muttered Rake, the enthusiast, in the saddling inclosure. “As for those fools what go agin you, you'll put them in a hole, and no mistake. French horse, indeed! Why, you'll spread-eagle all them Mossoos' and Meinherrs' cattle in a brace of seconds—”
Rake's foe, the head groom, caught him up savagely.
“Won't you never learn decent breeding? When we wins we wins on the quiet, and when we loses we loses as if we liked it; all that braying, and flaunting, and boasting is only fit for cads. The 'oss is in tip-top condition; let him show what he can do over furren ground.”
“Lucky for him, then, that he hasn't got you across the pigskin; you'd rope him, I believe, as soon as look at him, if it was made worth your while,” retorted Rake, in caustic wrath; his science of repartee chiefly lay in a successful “plant,” and he was here uncomfortably conscious that his opponent was in the right of the argument, as he started through the throng to put his master into the “shell” of the Shire-famous scarlet and white.
“Tip-top condition, my boy—tip-top, and no mistake,” murmured Mr. Willon for the edification of those around them as the saddle-girths were buckled on, and the Guards' Crack stood the cynosure of every eye at Iffesheim.
Then, in his capacity as head attendant on the hero, he directed the exercise bridle to be taken off, and with his own hands adjusted a new and handsome one, slung across his arm.