There was a jingling of harness, a rumbling of wheels, and a murmur of excitement among the spectators as the cadet corps put in an appearance, natty and handsome in their uniforms, the officers riding on horseback, and the privates mounted on the cannon or the caissons. Platoon after platoon they swept out upon the field; then formed in accordance with the sharp commands of the officers; and in a few minutes more "artillery drill" was under way.
It is rather an inspiring sight at times. There are over a dozen of the cannon, with four horses each to draw them, and when the whole squadron gets into motion at once, there is a thundering of hoofs and a cloud of dust behind to mark the path. And then when they wheel, and aim and fire, the roar of the discharge echoes among the hills and makes the post seem very military and warlike indeed.
So thought the spectators as they sat and watched, too much interested to have any eyes for what might happen elsewhere. But those who sat on the southern edge of the plain, where the road from Highland Falls emerged, were destined to witness a far more exciting incident than that, an incident which was not down on the programme, and which the tactical officers and the commandant of cadets, who stood by their horses at one side, had not planned or prepared for.
The last discharge of the morning's drill was yet ringing in the spectators' ears, and the sound barely had time to make its way down the road, before it was answered and flung back by another volley that was all the louder for its unexpectedness.
Bang! Bang!
The people turned and gazed in alarm. The cadet captain out upon the field stopped in the very midst of a command and leaned forward in his saddle to see; a sentry marching up the street forgot his orders and wheeled about in surprise. There was the wildest kind of excitement in a moment.
A horseman was racing up the road, galloping blindly ahead at full tilt. He wore the uniform of a cadet, and his face was red with excitement. He leaned forward over his horse, firing right and left into the air, while from his throat proceeded a series of yells such as no one in that vast crowd had ever heard before.
There was no time for exclamations from the spectators, no time for questions or anything else. It was scarcely a second more before the wild rider was upon them and he drove straight through the crowd with the speed of an express train, neither he or his horse heeding any one.
The panic-stricken people fled in all directions, some of them barely escaping the flying animal's hoofs. And in a moment more he was out on the open plain, heading straight for the squadron.