He shouted then—­as wildly as Dollops himself, as wildly as any man present.  He jumped up on his seat and waved his hat; he thumped Dollops on the back and cried:  “She’s creeping up!  She’s creeping up!  Stick to it, old chap, stick to it!  Give her her head, you fool!  She’ll do it—­by God, she’ll do it!  Hurrah!  Hurrah!” And was shouted down, and even seized and pulled down by others whose view he obstructed, and whose interest and excitement were as great as his.

Onwards they flew, horses and riders, the whole pounding, mixing, ever-changing mass of them; jackets and caps of every hue flashing here and there—­now in a huddled mass, now with this one in the lead, and again with that:  a vast, ever-moving, ever-altering kaleidoscope that was, presently, hidden entirely from the main mass of the onlookers, by the surging crowd, the mass of drags and carriages of all sorts in the huge square of the central enclosure, and most of all by the people who stood up on seats and wheels and even the tops of the vehicles.  Then, for a little time, the roars came from a distance only—­from those in the enclosure who alone could see—­then neared and neared and grew in volume, as the unseen racers pounded onward and came pelting up the long stretch toward Tattenham Corner.  And by and bye they swung into view again—­still a huddled mass, still so closely packed together that the positions of the individual horses was a matter of uncertainty—­but always the roaring sound went on and always it came nearer and nearer, until a thousand voices took it up at the foot of the grand stand, and other thousands bellowed it up and up from tier to tier to the very roof.

For, of a sudden, that blaze of caps and jackets, that huddle of horses red and horses grey, horses black and horses roan, piebald, white—­every colour that a horse may be—­had come at last to Tattenham Corner and burst into the full view of everybody.  Yet, as they came, a black mare, hugging the railed enclosure on the inner side of the sweep, arrowed forward with a sudden spurt, came like a rocket to the fore, and all the earth and all the sky seemed to ring with the cry:  “Wilding!  Wilding!  Black Riot leads!  Black Riot leads!”

She did—­and kept it to the end!

In half a minute her number was up, yelling thousands were tumbling out upon the field to cheer her, to cheer her rider, to cheer her proud owner when he came out to lead her to the paddock and the weighing room, and to feel in that moment the proudest and the happiest man in England; and of those, not the least excited and delighted was Cleek.

Carried away by enthusiasm, he had risen again in his seat and, with his hat held aloft upon a walking stick, was waving and stamping and shouting enthusiastically:  “Black Riot wins!  Black Riot!  Black Riot!  Bully boy!  Bully boy!”

And so he was still shouting when he felt a hand touch him, and looking round saw Mr. Narkom.