The leading horses had got by this time over two-thirds of the course—the first round only—and already the competitors were reduced to seven. Gallant Green was yet in front, riding hard, but his horse was much distressed; and as the second circuit of the course began, The Smasher, skilfully handled by Captain Hanger, shot past him with no apparent effort, and was for the moment first.
‘My Lord’s usual luck! The race is safe!’
‘Cherry and white wins!’ shouted hundreds.
But then uprose another roar of, ‘Yellow, Yellow for ever!’ as the Irish mare, which had hitherto kept the third place, taking fence, wall, brook, and rail with lamb-like docility, suddenly quickened her pace, racing neck to neck, head to head, with the redoubtable Smasher.
‘A pretty race! A fine sight! A sheet would cover both of them!’ was the general cry. The ladies in the carriages and on the stand waved their handkerchiefs enthusiastically, and of the lookers-on there were scores who forgot that their money was at stake, in genuine enjoyment of the struggle. On the rivals went. Together they flew across the brook, together they crashed through the hedges and fences in their way. Then, thanks to his own skill or to the excellence of his horse, Captain Hanger gained ground, and was in front as he prepared to ride at a stiff line of rails, the last serious obstacle, save one, to be encountered in the circuit.
Then it was that Jasper tightened the curb-rein that he had hitherto left untouched, and the disfiguring blinkers dropped as if by magic from before Nora Creina’s eyes! The result was startling. With a snort and a scream, the fierce mare caught sight of her opponent in the act of gathering himself together for the leap; and with a bound such as a tigress might have given, she hurled herself upon him, striving—but owing to the muzzle, ineffectually—to tear the other horse with her teeth. There was a crashing of splintered timber, an outcry, a heavy fall, and both horses and both men were down amidst the wreck of the fence.
Jasper, bareheaded and dizzy, was the first to stagger to his feet and regain his saddle. A hundred yards in front was the stone wall with its double ditch, the so-called ‘sensation jump’ of the race, and which the Committee had taken it upon themselves to heighten for this exceptional contest. Beyond, there was the easy run home over smooth turf to the winning-post.
‘Yellow! yellow! Yellow wins!’ shouted the crowd, as Jasper approached the wall; but then there was a quick thunder of hurrying hoofs upon the green-sward, and Captain Hanger swept past at whirlwind speed, while cries of ‘Cherry and white! The Smasher’s first!’ rent the air. Till that instant, the Irish mare had been going steadily; but now, on seeing her rival outstrip her rapid pace, her fiendish temper again kindled into flame, and with a shrill scream she darted forward. But Captain Hanger knew his art too well to be surprised for the second time. He had his own horse, sobered by the late fall, well in hand; whereas he saw that the savage animal which Jasper rode was completely freed from the control of her rider. By a quick and masterly motion of the rein, he wheeled off, eluding the shock that threatened him, and with a rare courage and coolness put The Smasher’s head straight for the wall. The gallant horse rose like a bird, topped the obstacle on which his hind-feet clattered, and recovering himself with an effort, galloped in, the winner, amid the deafening applause of thousands.
Jasper was less fortunate. Panting, snorting with rage, in a lather of heat and foam, the furious mare he rode rose at the wall, struck it with her chest, breaking down the new masonry, and rolled over upon the turf beyond, bearing down beneath her weight the unfortunate rider. ‘A man killed!’ It needed but that cry to make the mob utterly ungovernable; and in spite of the efforts of the police, gentle and simple, and those who were neither the one nor the other, hurried pell-mell to the spot where lay, beneath the broken wall, the hapless form of Jasper Denzil. ‘He’s alive!’ cried fifty voices, with the oddest mingling of gratification and disappointment. ‘The rider’s living. It’s only the mare that’s dead,’ a verdict which turned out to be correct. Then a doctor, one out of the half-dozen of doctors on the course, jumped off the cob he rode and took possession of Jasper.
‘He’ll get over it!’ cried the surgeon, feeling first the heart and then the wrist of the sufferer. ‘If we had but a carriage now, to get him quietly to the inn.’