“Didn't I tell you—Lauzanne wins in a walk!” the falsetto voice was an exultant squeak of hilarious excitement.
“You called the turn.” Even Ned's baritone had risen to a false-keyed tenor; he was standing on his toes, peering over the heads of taller men in front.
Allis brushed from her eyes the tears of sympathy that had welled into them, and, raising her voice, spoke bravely, clinging to the vain hope: “Lucretia is game, father—she may win yet—the race is not lost till they're past the post.”
Then her voice died away, and she kept pleading over and over in her heart, “Come on Lucretia—come on, brave little mare! Is she gaining, father—can you see?”
“She'll never make it up,” Porter replied, as he watched the jumble of red, and yellow, and black patterned into a trailing banner, which waved, and vibrated, and streamed in the glittering sunlight, a furlong down the Course—and the tail of it was his own blue, whitestarred jacket. In front, still a good two lengths in front, gleamed scarlet, like an evil eye, the all red of Lauzanne's colors.
“Where is Lucretia, father?” the girl asked again, stretching her slight figure up in a vain endeavor to see over the shoulders of those in front.
“She had an opening there,” Porter replied, speaking his thoughts more than answering the girl, “but the boy pulled her into the bunch on the rail. He doesn't want to get through. Oh!” he exclaimed, as though some one had struck him in the face.
“What's wrong? Has she—”
“It's the Minstrel. His boy threw him fair across Lucretia, and knocked her to her knees.” He lowered his glasses listlessly. “It's Lauzanne all the way, if he lasts out. He's dying fast though, and Westley's gone to the whip.”
He was looking through his glasses again. Though beaten, his racing blood was up. “If Lauzanne wins it will be Westley's riding; the Hanover colt, The Dutchman, is at his quarter. He'll beat him out, for the Hanovers are all game.”