A man shouted back to the watchers, and their prattle hushed. There was an instant of absolute silence, suspended breath;—and then somebody swung a lantern.
"Go!" he cried.
Leaping into the darkness the line of horses broke like a wave and went, their limbs gleaming. Already they were blundering into the first hedge, and there was a crash, relieved by laughter as the first spill resulted in one man picking himself up unhurt. The rest were swinging on; rising again, more warily, a little farther; and just visible, for the last time, black objects against the sky.
The Duchess set her foot in the stirrup and galloped off. Susan rocked as she stood, and was nearly flung out as the buggy started forward, and the whole cavalcade whirled blindly into a lane that was all ruts and stones and turf.
Strange what an unimagined wildness darkness and ignorance lent to that plain strip of country. The fields that slanted were dreadful hills sinking into unknown abysses, the brooks rushed like rivers, the hedges lifted themselves gigantic. Many who had ridden over the ground by daylight times without number exclaimed, and wished the night at an end.
Kitty Drake, however, was screaming with delight.
"Here they come!" she shrilled. "Oh, shut up, you people. You'll scare the horses. I know it's awfully weird, but still—! That's Dicky, of course. I'd know Nanny's frills anywhere; he looks like a mad pierrot. Oh, and Colonel Birch, with Mrs. Uffington's chiffon scarf tied on to him. Mrs. Uffington, it was base of you not to risk it. My best garment is floating there, being torn to ribbons by Gregory's spurs."
"Sit down, Kitty!" cried somebody at her elbow. "You can't see anything yet; it's all imagination."
"I see it with my mind's eye," she declared; but subsided.
A few men on horseback scampered out of the nothingness and drew up beside them. This was the place to watch the riders jump the water. They pressed close in a peering bunch, the cigars in their mouths making red points in the gloom. The Duchess halted by the buggy, a curious figure in Gregory Drake's greatcoat, with the sleeves turned up.