Pas de Charge, much behind, refused the yawner; his strength was not more than his courage, but both had been strained too severely at first.  Montacute struck the spurs into him with a savage blow over the head; the madness was its own punishment; the poor brute rose blindly to the jump, and missed the bank with a reel and a crash; Sir Eyre was hurled out into the brook, and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his breast and forelegs resting on the ground, his hindquarters in the water, and his neck broken.  Pas de Charge would never again see the starting flag waved, or hear the music of the hounds, or feel the gallant life throb and glow through him at the rallying notes of the horn.  His race was run.

Not knowing, or looking, or heeding what happened behind, the trio tore on over the meadow and the plowed; the two favorites neck by neck, the game little mare hopelessly behind through that one fatal moment over Brixworth.  The turning-flags were passed; from the crowds on the course a great hoarse roar came louder and louder, and the shouts rang, changing every second:  “Forest King wins!” “Bay Regent wins!” “Scarlet and White’s ahead!” “Violet’s up with him!” “A cracker on the King!” “Ten to one on the Regent!” “Guards are over the fence first!” “Guards are winning!” “Guards are losing!” “Guards are beat!”

Were they?

As the shout rose, Cecil’s left stirrup-leather snapped and gave way; at the pace they were going most men, aye, and good riders too, would have been hurled out of their saddle by the shock; he scarcely swerved; a moment to ease the King and to recover his equilibrium, then he took the pace up again as though nothing had chanced.  And his comrades of the Household, when they saw this through their race-glasses, broke through their serenity and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grasslands and the coppices like a clarion, the grand rich voice of the Seraph leading foremost and loudest—­a cheer that rolled mellow and triumphant down the cold, bright air like the blast of trumpets, and thrilled on Bertie’s ear where he came down the course, a mile away.  It made his heart beat quicker with a victorious, headlong delight, as his knees pressed close into Forest King’s flanks, and, half stirrupless like the Arabs, he thundered forward to the greatest riding feat of his life.  His face was very calm still, but his blood was in tumult, the delirium of pace had got on him, a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he knew that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a black sheet under him, and, in that killing speed, fence and hedge and double and water all went by him like a dream; whirling underneath him as the gray stretched, stomach to earth, over the level, and rose to leap after leap.

For that instant’s pause, when the stirrup broke, threatened to lose him the race.