Women screamed, or took the opportunity to manipulate a surreptitious powder-puff.

Men shouted and waved their topees, or shouted and performed equestrian gymnastics, and the jockeys en masse cursed their masters’ presence, and the more or less mythical value of their respective mounts.

Just for that one moment in which anything occurring out of your ordinary rut leaves you practically stunned into inertia.

Then things began to shape themselves, and for one unbelievable second caste was thrown to the soft wind which was sweeping up the last rags of mist.

Military mingled with commerce, the I.C.S. which, written in full, means God’s Anointed, looked at instead of through the railway; jute condescended to the tourist, and white ejaculated to kaffyolay as they all sat gazing after the retreating form of the Devil and the pursuing shapes of one or two, who, fairly decently mounted, were pegging away stout-heartedly in a perfectly vain, but praiseworthy effort to save Leonie from certain death.

And then a sigh of relief went up.

A bay, stretched out, was flying like the wind, hoofs thundering on the hard ground, tail streaming, as, urged by his master’s heel and voice, he strove to get to the tank before the runaway.

The distance and the speed were too great, the horse and kit were not sufficiently familiar to allow the spectators to identify the one man who seemed to have a plan in his head, and a horse under him.

The women strained their eyes in an endeavour to distinguish him, men kept theirs glued to Leonie who was riding straight and apparently making no effort to check the Devil, and policemen, forgetful of their dignity, their status, and their red turbans, hung over the rails near the grand-stand entrance with a riff-raff of taxi chauffeurs, pukka chauffeurs and syce.

For the first two hundred yards across the brown grass of the Maidan, Leonie thoroughly enjoyed the tearing gallop, having failed to grasp the fact that the Devil was bolting; but after having spoken soothingly, and pulled firmly without making any impression, somewhere about the middle of the polo ground she awoke to the fact that something had to be done.

“They’re in it!  No! missed, by Jove!”

The jockey bunched himself in an ecstasy of relief, and his mare danced with a fellow-electrical feeling as the Devil, wheeling sharply from the sparkling water in the tank, missed the lone tree by a foot; then gathering fresh impetus from the ever-nearing sound of thudding hoofs, tore towards the rails enclosing the two tracks.

They are not high, but they are fairly close together, and four in all, and a horse, blind from fear or temper, is quite as likely to let you down at the first as at the fourth.

But Jan Cuxson saw a gleam of hope.

Surely the runaway would slacken, surely no horse could possibly take four fences at that terrific speed; and if he did slacken, then the bay, as nimble as a cat in spite of his weight, would catch up, and something would be done before they dashed headlong across the tram-threaded, crowded Kidderpore Road.