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The horse was anxious for a journey after a fortnight of idleness and he bade fair to keep pace with his rider's impatience. The Arabian hills had sunk below the sky-line and the Libyan desert was not marked by any eminence. With Pa-Ramesu behind him, a wide unbroken horizon belted the dusky landscape.
Better come and dine with us, if you've nothing to do, Scott. William, is there any dinner in the house?" "I'll go home and see," was the rider's answer. "You can drive him over at eight, remember." Scott moved leisurely to his room, and changed into the evening-dress of the season and the country: spotless white linen from head to foot, with a broad silk cummerbund.
Out of it came the rider's voice as he urged the black to a point within three or four paces of Corrigan and sat in the saddle, looking at him. And now for the first time Rosalind had a clear, full view of the rider's face and a quiver of trepidation ran over her.
Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his rider's leg. Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could not rise. Rostov also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache having become entangled in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the French, he did not know. There was no one near. Having disentangled his leg, he rose.
In order to learn the rider's route, Rolf followed at a trot for a mile. This brought him to a hilltop, whither in the silent night, that fateful north wind carried still the sound te rump te rump te rump. As it was nearly lost, Rolf used his knife again; that brought the rider back within a mile it seemed, and again the hoof beat faded, te rump te rump.
"Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!" And all the thousands who were of the rider's company, both those near and those afar, replied so the air shook with the sound, which was as a great wind threshing the side of the hill. Amidst the din, the cries of the poor lepers were not more than the twittering of dazed sparrows.
There were Amazons of old as the early Greeks knew to their cost strong, self-reliant, courageous women, who acknowledged no human superiority. Is the Amazonian spirit dead in the earth? Not so! It is alive, and clothing itself with will, power and persistence. Already it is grasping the rein, and the mettled steed stands impatient to feel the rider's impulse in the saddle.
On reaching the open prairie he gave the mare her head and went off with a wild whoop like an arrow from a bow. Black Polly required neither spur nor whip. She possessed that charmingly sensitive spirit which seems to receive an electric shock from its rider's lightest chirp.
The motion of the horse, so long unfamiliar, so easy, so graceful, so rhythmical, seemed of itself to key his spirits to his environment, for it is an elemental pleasure to be seated in the saddle and feel the thrill of power and rapid motion. The rider's eyes brightened, his cheeks glowed, his pulses bounded.
In travelling on a very stony and uneven lane, Julian's horse repeatedly stumbled; and, had he not been supported by the rider's judicious use of the bridle, must at length certainly have fallen under him. "These are times which crave wary riding, sir," said his companion; "and by your seat in the saddle, and your hand on the rein, you seem to understand it to be so."
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