The glittering throngs spreading over the plains gazed at him in the sheer stupor of amazement; they saw that the famous English hero was dead-beat as any used-up knacker.
One second more he strove to wrench himself through the throng of the horses, through the headlong crushing press, through—worst foe of all!—the misty darkness curtaining his sight! One second more he tried to wrestle back the old life into his limbs, the unworn power and freshness into nerve and sinew. Then the darkness fell utterly; the mighty heart failed; he could do no more—and his rider's hand slackened and turned him gently backward; his rider's voice sounded very low and quiet to those who, seeing that every effort was hopeless, surged and clustered round his saddle.
“Something ails the King,” said Cecil calmly; “he is fairly knocked off his legs. Some Vet must look to him; ridden a yard farther he will fall.”
Words so gently spoken!—yet in the single minute that alone had passed since they had left the Starter's Chair, a lifetime seemed to have been centered, alike to Forest King and to his owner.
The field swept on with a rush, without the favorite; and the Prix de Dames was won by the French bay L'Etoile.
CHAPTER X.
“PETITE REINE.”
When a young Prussian had shot himself the night before for roulette losses, the event had not thrilled, startled, and impressed the gay Baden gathering one tithe so gravely and so enduringly as did now the unaccountable failure of the great Guards' Crack.
Men could make nothing of it save the fact that there was “something dark” somewhere. The “painted quid” had done its work more thoroughly than Willon and the welsher had intended; they had meant that the opiate should be just sufficient to make the favorite off his speed, but not to make effects so palpable as these. It was, however, so deftly prepared that under examination no trace could be found of it, and the result of veterinary investigation, while it left unremoved the conviction that the horse had been doctored, could not explain when or how, or by what medicines. Forest King had simply “broken down”; favorites do this on the flat and over the furrow from an overstrain, from a railway journey, from a touch of cold, from a sudden decay of power, from spasm, or from vertigo; those who lose by them may think what they will of “roping,” or “painting,” or “nobbling,” but what can they prove?