"I resign--_vice_ Lamont promoted--for half an hour."
"That means a whole hour, now," called out Clare after him, whereat a
great laugh went up from her hearers.
From all but one, that is; and to this one all this chaff and
light-hearted merriment was too awful, too ghastly--he, who _knew_ what
none of these even so much as suspected.
"And the flood came and destroyed them all," he quoted to himself. And
as he contemplated all these women occupying the `grand stand'--cool and
dainty and elegant in their light summer attire--and this beautiful girl
queening it over her little court of admirers, it seemed to him that the
responsibility resting upon his own shoulders was too great, too awful,
too superhuman: and the thought flitted through his brain that perhaps
he ought never to have assumed it. A warning to the authorities to
postpone the race meeting and put the township into a state of defence--
would not such have been his plain duty? But then they would only have
laughed at him for a scare-monger and have done nothing. Moreover, even
had he decided on such a plan, the Fates had already decided against it,
for the lame horse on which he had started for Gandela had gone lamer
still, with the result that he had been obliged to abandon the animal,
and cover nearly half the distance on foot. He had further been forced
to make a considerable _detour_, in order to avoid the mustering impi,
portions of which he had seen, and all heading for the point arranged
upon--consequently it was not until the early afternoon that he gained
the township at all.
There was yet time. The prize-giving was the crucial moment, and that
would not take place for at least three hours. He made a good meal at
the hotel--an absolute necessity--and sent it down with a bottle of the
best champagne the house had got. Even then, when he arrived on the
course, he drew the remark that he was `looking rather seedy,' as we
have heard.
"Why, Mr Lamont, you are quiet," said Clare brightly. "Shall I offer
you the regulation penny?"
He smiled queerly.
"Am I? Oh, Driffield's making such a row one couldn't have heard
oneself speak in any case."
"I like that," exclaimed the implicated one. "By Jove, old chap, you do
look chippy! And--you've got a coat on."
"Yes. Premonitory touch of fever. No good taking risks. That you,
Ancram? I say, why the dickens didn't you send back my gee again? I've
been wanting him more than enough, I can tell you."
Ancram explained that he thought a day or two more or less didn't
matter, and he was awfully sorry, and so on, the while he was thinking
what a beastly disagreeable chap Lamont could be if he liked, and what
rotten form it was kicking up a row in public about his old bag of
bones, which he probably hadn't really been in want of at all.
"I'm tired of sitting here," pronounced Clare. "I want to walk about a
bit. Help me down, someone!"
Half a dozen hands were extended, but it was on Lamont's that hers
rested as she tripped down the cranky, wobbly steps, knocked up out of
old boxes.
"You coming, Lucy? No? Too hot? Oh well."
Lamont was obviously the favoured one to-day, decided the others,
observing how decidedly, though without appearing to do so, she took
possession of him; wherefore they refrained from making an escort,
except Ancram, whom she promptly cold-shouldered in such wise that even
he was not proof against it, and finally dropped off, wondering what on
earth any girl could see in a dull disagreeable dog like Lamont, who
hadn't three words to say for himself.
"Will you do something for me if I ask you, Mr Lamont?" said Clare, as
they found themselves a little apart from the rest, who were watching
some high jumping.
"Certainly I will, Miss Vidal--er, that is--if I can."
Really he was in good sooth doing his best to deserve Ancram's verdict.
That sweet bright face, looking up at him in a way that most of those
present would have given something to occupy his shoes, surely deserved
an answer less frigid, less halting. Clare herself felt something of
this, and she replied--
"Oh, it's nothing very great. I only want you to enter for the
tent-pegging."
He was relieved. He had contemplated the possibility of her requiring
some service that would necessitate him leaving his post--hence the
hesitation.
"Of course I will. But isn't it too late to enter?"
"No. If it is they'll have to waive the rule. I'm going to put money
on you."
"Oh, don't do that. You'll lose. That fellow Ancram has been riding my
horse to death, the groom at Foster's was quite surprised I should want
to ride him up here now, all things considered. However, there he is.
I'll enter with pleasure, but don't you plunge on me."
"But I will, and you must win. Do you hear, you must win."
"I'll try my best, and can't do more."
"That's right," she said.
Lamont was very much of a misogynist, and was impatient of the sex and
its foibles, but there was something in this girl that disarmed even
him. Her very voice sounded caressing, and the quick lift of the deep
blue eyes--well, it was dangerous, might soon become maddening. She had
appealed to him from the very first, he admitted as much deep down in
his heart of hearts, but there, and there only. Now, amid this sunny,
light-hearted scene, as he looked at her he thought how, under other
circumstances, he might have talked to her differently. But the horror
invisibly brooding on yonder sunlit hill was still to be reckoned with,
and now another anxiety was deepening within his mind. The witch-doctor
had not yet arrived, and his presence was essential to the carrying out
of the plot--and its frustration.
The tent-pegging, like the racing, proved, for the most part, poor; so
much so indeed that it was hard to work up any great enthusiasm over it,
though there was abundance of chaff. At the end, however, flagging
interest revived, for now the win lay between Lamont and Orwell, the
resident magistrate. Tie after tie they made, always neck and neck, and
it became a question whether it would not end in a tie. There was
plenty of excitement now, and shouting. Then there was dead silence as
the two men awaited the word for the last time.
Lamont settled down to his saddle. He would win, he felt, to miss would
be impossible. They were off. His lance was unerringly straight for
the peg. But as they thundered along he looked up--only one
lightning-quick glance, and then--his lance ploughed up the bare turf
while that of his adversary whirled aloft, the wedge of wood impaled
upon it hard and fast. And amid the roar of cheers that rent the air,
Lamont recognised that that quick side-glance he had been betrayed into
taking had lost him the day.
But that look--which had clouded his brain and unsteadied his wrist--not
upon her for whom he was here in these modern lists was it directed, but
upon a red object moving among the groups near the entrance gate of the
enclosure.