I wondered if Eliza's interference with the betting had increased or reduced my danger. Neither seemed very likely. I would carry her glove to win with and I would remember awhile how she looked, standing snowy-white between her father and me.
I wished I could have her for my own. Instead the dark inkling came to me that except for unknown forces moving in my behalf—fate or luck or hidden law or uncomprehended love—I would take another bride.
The road had been closed many years before, and there was no sign of cart tracks on the grassy ground. This was good, firm ground, frostbitten and sere except for patches of low heather, and more open than I had hardly hoped. A few yews and birch stood lonely along the way, but only one narrow strip of woods obscured the view and permitted any meddling with the jumps. This was a dense covert of larches running at right angles to the course; and without apparent rhyme or reason, the roadway through was obstructed by a heavy wooden gate. This was the first jump beyond the starting gate, and less than a hundred yards farther on the road turned sharply, which meant that near the end and in the heat of the run we would come upon it rather suddenly, with no time for a careful survey.
Of the five other jumps, only the last was dangerous—a brook with steep, unstable banks. El Stedoro took them all with composure. Eliza's bay followed in good form except for the water gap; in this case she found an easier jump a furlong up the brook.
I could hardly bring myself to speak to my lovely sunny-haired companion, and we rode in frostbitten silence.
The time passed until two in the afternoon. Then I went into El Stedoro's stall and gave him some bread that might make him recall the bread flaps of his colthood, and some milk not tasting like camel's milk which he drank in its lieu, and then I petted him in ways he liked, especially putting my hand into his mouth and letting him gently press it with his great teeth; and I talked to him in Arabic, the sound of which might recall happier days. Jim had groomed him until he glistened, then saddled and bridled him, using a straight, gentle bit.
"You cay him out and you cay him back, and I'll deckirate your bridle with two silver stars," I heard Jim murmur in his ear.
When Jim led him into the paddock, Eliza was waiting at the gate for me. At once she handed me a riding glove.
"For good luck," she told me.
Long ago it had meant more than that. It would have meant that her hand joined with mine in the endeavor.
"I'll try to win you that ten pounds," I answered.
Her throat worked, and she spoke again in almost inaudible tones.
"About that other matter. Is it off?"
"It was mostly sword-rattling to start with."
"You say mostly. For my curiosity, what was the little rest?"
"Some lost dreams."
"It being off won't make it worse for Papa and Sophia?"
"Have no fear of that."
"I never believed it anyway. The Ogre of Elveshurst is not up to scratch."
"I know whom you'll marry," I said, haunted by a dream.
"Yes, tell my fortune."
"A youth with laughter in his mouth and sunlight in his eyes, and a great rider and hunter."
"Someone said that to you. Some girl like me. The one whom you mentioned to me?"
"She was very much like you."
Lord Tarlton came up to instruct Eliza in her duties as judge. Dick, carelessly dressed, dark, graceful, a racing bat in his small, hard hand, took the moment to speak to me.
"You and I don't have to humor Eliza," he said in tones just low enough to escape the others' hearing. "We can make a private bet."
"For how much?"
"Not five thousand pounds but ten thousand."
"That's very handsome, but it's too late—"
"You needn't put it in writing. Your word's good enough. We'll not bother with witnesses. If you lose, it's nothing to you. If I lose, I'm in hock the rest of my life. But if I win—win fair—I'li take my winnings and clear out for the Antipodes. My shadow will no longer darken these pretty scenes. You'll have only Papa to contend with then. Harvey's a reed and you'll probably win, and if you want Eliza along with your revenge, you can get her. What do you say?" His eyes burned into mine.
It was too late in a larger sense than my excuse had meant. Fate spoke through my helpless lips.
"I'll let the other bet stand."
"Just as you say, Squire Blackburn. Well, shall we up and at it?"
I nodded and turned to mount. Lord Tarlton spoke in unfeigned amazement.
"Blackburn, I can't stop wondering at that raw-boned brute. He recalls another gray I've seen—had the same black-ringed dapples— but for the moment—"
"Perhaps it was Ottoman, El Stedoro's paternal grandfather."
"Great guns! Of course it was. I saw Ottoman sweep the field. He was sold to a Barbary prince. Who was El Stedoro's dam?"
"Farishti, a pure-bred Arab."
"Doesn't Farishti mean 'angel? I picked up a few Oriental words when I served in Malta. What does El Stedoro mean?"
"As near as I could hit it. The Vindictive.'"
The little silence falling was almost unnoticeable.
"A name I've heard before. She was a horse-of-tree, I think, sunk by a pirate off the Aegadian Isles." Lord Tarlton glanced at his handsome repeater, carried on a gold chain in the pocket of his buff waistcoat. "It's time for the race."
Dick and I took our places outside the gate of the course. Dick s hand appeared light, yet he kept the high-strung black stallion in remarkably good control. Like most horses hand-raised among the Bedouin, El Stedoro had been taught to stand statuesque as a trooper's charger on review. When Eliza's clear high voice cried, "Go!" I touched him with my boot and he and Donald Dhu cleared the gate side by side.
Hooves drummed and I felt the mighty thrust of El Stedoro's thighs that hurled him up and forward, and the brace of his big shoulders as his forelegs bore the brunt of his descent. But I did not give him leave to bound his greatest, as when he had raced with his dam Farishti on the dun pastures of his native land. That would come much later, if at all.
The road curbed, we passed out of sight of the little cluster of people, and drew nigh the wooden gate closing the roadway through the woods. Being easy to approach in stealth by a waylayer in the dense larch growth, it was the jump I most feared. I saw^ it sharply —low heather spread out and covering the course on the other side, greener than its wont in this damp weather, set off every board— and took a swift, searching glance at Dick's hands and feet. He was not holding back to let me go over first; as though to take it on the fly, he quickened the black's singes by light, rhythmic blows of his bat. Unless all signs failed—his form and balance and the beast's approach—he meant to clear it cleanly, not knock it askew to throw me. The next second he was up and over. El Stedoro hard on Donald s heels.
But this was only tlie first jump beyond the starting gate, and its first essaying, not its last. Anyway, a treason worthy of my great antagonist, standing so high in his order, almost himself a prince, would not take this simple, uncertain form. Not he, my little lord, his white hand on his walking stick, would stoop to a horse coper's jobbery. Sophia had told me something with bearing on this when I was young. I wish I could remember what it was...
Surely the most likely deadfall was the water gap, dangerous to start with, far from the watchers, out on the bleak moor. Yet every jump was suspect of ambuscade; no footroom on the course promised safety; I must not overlook one little adverse sign. My mind on this, my soul was free to stray. I dreamed of other fateful races I had run, always against the same opponent. One, with El Stedero under me, had seemed to be with Farishti, bearing Suliman, Sheik el Beni Kabir. We had sped behind the greyhounds, shouting and laughing, and I had not seen the dread spirit gliding beside us until he smote my chieftain amidst his mirth.