"Good fortune!" he cried
sharply. "Good fortune! Am I a fool or a coward that I am never to win except
by craft or good fortune? Had you let me alone--" His voice broke, so bitter
was his disappointment.
His foster-father regarded him from under lowered lids.
"Would you have won without them to-day?" he inquired.
"Yes!" Canute cried savagely, "had you given me time. Yes!"
But what else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle turned in
their direction the stream of rushing horsemen. In an instant the torrent had
caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so many separate atoms borne
along on the flood. To hold back was to be thrown down; to fall was to be
trampled into rags. The battle had changed into a hunt.
Thundering hoof-beats, crashing blows, shrieks and groans and falling bodies,
--a sense of being caught in a wolf pack took possession of the girl; and the
feeling grew with every sidelong glance she had of the savage sweating
dust-grimed faces, in their jungles of blood-clotted hair. The battle-madness
was upon them, and they were no longer men, but beasts of prey. Amid the chaos
of her mind, a new idea shaped itself like a new world. If she could but work
her way to the edge of the herd, she might escape down one of those green
aisles opening before them. If she only could! Every fibre in her became
intent upon it.
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