Part 18 (1/2)

Gray Robin's mild eyes glanced apprehensively into the depths as we went slowly over, and his ears and nostrils twitched to and fro at the growl of the surf down below on either side. I held him firmly by the head and soothed him with encouraging words. The old horse snuffled between grat.i.tude and disgust, and Carette clung tightly up above, and vowed that she would not cross on Black Boy whatever Torode might say.

She was devoutly thankful, I could see, when Gray Robin stepped safely onto the spreading bulk of Little Sercq. I lifted her down, and loosed the old horse's bit and set him free for a crop among the sweet short gra.s.ses of the hillside, while we sat down with the rest to watch the others come over.

Caution was the order of the day. Most of the girls kept their seats and braved the pa.s.sage in token of confidence in their convoys. Some risked all but accident by meekly footing it, and accepted the ironical congratulations on the other side as best they might.

Young Torode had waited his turn with impatience. He and Black Boy were on such terms that the latter would have made a bolt for home if the grasp on his bridle had relaxed for one moment. Again and again his restlessness had suffered angry check which served only to increase it. Neither horse nor rider was in any state for so critical a pa.s.sage as the one before them.

There was no community of feeling between them, except of dislike, and the backbone of a common enterprise is mutual trust and good feeling.

To do him that much justice, Torode must have known that under the circ.u.mstances he was taking unusual risk. But he had confidence in his own skill and mastery, and no power on earth would have deterred him from the attempt.

He leaped on Black Boy, turned him from the gulf and rode him up the Common. Then he turned again and came down at a hand gallop, and reaped his reward in the startled cries and anxious eyes of the onlookers. The safe sitters in the heather on the farther side sprang up to watch, and held their breath.

”The fool!” slipped through more clenched teeth than mine.

The stones from Black Boy's heels went rattling down into the depths on either side. The first pinnacles were gained in safety. Just beyond them the path twisted to the right. Black Boy's stride had carried him too near the left-hand pillar. An angry jerk of the reins emphasised his mistake. He resented it, as he had resented much in his treatment that morning already.

His head came round furiously, his heels slipped in the crumbling gravel, he kicked out wildly for safer holding, and in a moment he was over.

At the first feel of insecurity behind, Torode slipped deftly out of the saddle. He still held the reins and endeavoured to drag the poor beast up.

But Black Boy's heels were kicking frantically, now on thin air, now for a second against an impossible slope of rock which offered no foothold. For a moment he hung by his forelegs curved in rigid agony, his nostrils wide and red, his eyes full of frantic appeal, his ears flat to his head, his poor face pitiful in its desperation. Torode shouted to him, dragged at the reins--released them just in time.

Those who saw it never forgot that last look on Black Boy's face, never lost the rending horror of his scream as his forelegs gave and he sank out of sight, never forgot the hideous sound of his fall as he rolled down the cliff to the rocks below.

The girls hid their faces and sank sobbing into the heather. The men cursed Torode volubly, and regretted that he had not gone with Black Boy.

And it was none but black looks that greeted him when, after standing a moment, he came on across the Coupee and joined the rest.

”It is a misfortune,” he said brusquely, as he came among us.

”It is sheer murder and brutality,” said Charles Vaudin roughly.

”Guyabble! It's you that ought to be down there, not yon poor brute,” said Guerin.

”Tuts then! A horse! I'll make him good to Hamon.”

”And, unless I'm mistaken, you promised him not to ride the Coupee,” I said angrily, for I knew how George Hamon would feel about Black Boy.

”Diable! I believe I did, but I forgot all about it in seeing you others crawling across. Will you lend me your horse to ride back, Carre?

Mademoiselle rides home with me.”

”Mademoiselle does not, and I won't lend you a hair of him.”

”That was the understanding. Mademoiselle promised.”

”Well, she will break her promise,--with better reason than you had. I shall see her safely home.”

”Right, Phil! Stick to that!” said the others; and Torode looking round felt himself in a very small minority, and turned sulkily and walked back across the Coupee.