But the outsider held his own without an effort.

Then the note of the thundering multitudes changed again with dramatic suddenness.  Hope, that had died away, and Fear, that had vanished utterly, were a-wing once more.  In the air they met and clashed tumultuously.  America was soaring into the blue; England fluttering earthward again.  And the cause was not far to seek.

The boy on the brown was tiring.  He was swaying in his saddle.

A thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression.

“Nipper’s beat for the distance!” came the cry.

“Brown horse wins!  Green jacket loses!”

The Grand Stand saw it.  Chukkers saw it, too.  His eyes were fixed on his rival’s face like the talons of a vulture in his prey.  They never stirred; they never lifted.  He came pressing up alongside his enemy—­insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat.  Silver could have screamed.  That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her, fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing it, obsessing it.

And the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone.  It seemed to be contagious.  Swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing.

“He’s swearing at him!” cried the White Hat, aghast.

“B——­ shame!” shouted another.

“Tryin’ to rattle the lad!”

And a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens.

To Silver it was no longer a race:  it was the world-struggle, old as time—­Right against Wrong, Light against Dark.  He was watching it like God; and, like God, he could do nothing.  His voice was lost in his throat.  Outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea in travail.  A tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within him.

Then the nightmare passed.

The boy on the brown rallied; and, it seemed, a fainting nation rallied with him.

He steadied himself, sat still as a cloud for a moment, and then stirred deliberately and of set purpose.

He was asking his horse the question.  There was no doubt of the reply.

Four-Pound shot to the front like a long-dammed stream.

His vampire enemy clung for a desperate moment, and then faded away behind amid the groans of his maddened supporters and the acclamations of the triumphant Englishmen.

“Got her dead to the world!” cried Old Mat, a note of battle resounding deeply through his voice.  “What price Putnam’s now!” And he thumped the rail.

But the end was not even yet.  The great English horse came moving like a flood round the corner and swooped gloriously over the last fence.

The roar that had held the air toppled away into a sound as of a world-avalanche, shot with screams.