But even as he did so a mischievous blast, lying in wait, swooped down the chimney, rekindling the hearth, and lit up the room with a shameless glow, from which Dick fled in bashful terror.
His companions were already waiting for him at the crossing.
Two of them were struggling in the darkness with some strange misshapen bulk, which, as Dick came nearer, took the semblance of a great yellow horse.
It was the mare.
She was not a pretty picture.
From her Roman nose to her rising haunches, from her arched spine, hidden by the stiff machillas of a Mexican saddle, to her thick, straight, bony legs, there was not a line of equine grace.
In her half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in her protruding under lip, in her monstrous colour, there was nothing but ugliness and vice.
“Now then,” said Staples, “stand cl’ar of her heels, boys, and up with you. Don’t miss your first holt of her mane, and mind ye get your off stirrup quick. Ready!”
There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a bound, a wild retreat of the crowd, a circle of flying hoofs, two springless leaps that jarred the earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, a plunge, and then the voice of Dick somewhere in the darkness.
“All right!”