All the native officers and men who could get leave for the great occasion formed a picturesque group in the forefront of the crowd; Rajinder Singh towering in their midst, his face set like a mask; his eyes fierce with the lust of victory. Evelyn Desmond, installed beside Honor in a friend's dog-cart, sat with her small hands clenched, her face flushed to the temples, disjointed murmurs breaking from her at intervals. Honor sat very still and silent, gripping the iron bar of the box-seat, her whole soul centred on the game. Paul Wyndham, who had mounted the step on her side of the cart, and whose hand clasped the bar within half an inch of hers, had not spoken since the ponies last went out; and to all appearance his concentration equalled her own. But her nearness affected him as the proximity of iron affects the needle of a compass, deflecting his thoughts and eyes continually from the central point of interest. And what of Frank Olliver? Her effervescent spirit can only be likened to champagne just before the cork flies off. Perched upon the front seat of a drag, with Colonel Buchanan, she noted every stroke and counter-stroke, every point gained and lost, with the practised knowledge of a man, and the one-sided ardour of a woman. She had already cheered herself hoarse; but still kept up a running fire of comment, emphasised by an occasional pressure of the Colonel's coat-sleeve, to the acute discomfiture of that self-contained Scot. "We'll not be far off the winning post now," she assured him at this juncture. "Our ponies are playing with their heads entirely, and the others are losing theirs because of the natives and the cheering. There goes the ball straight for the boundary again!--Well done, Geoff! But the long fellow's caught it--Saints alive! 'Twould have been a goal but for Theo. How's _that_ for a fine stroke, now?" For Desmond, with a clean, splitting smack, had sent the ball flying across three-fourths of the ground. "Mind the goal!" he shouted to his half-back, Alla Dad Khan, as Diamond headed after the ball like a lightning streak, with three racers--maddened by whip and spur and their own delirious excitement--clattering upon his tail; and a fusilade of clapping, cheers, and yells broke out on all sides. The ball, checked in mid career, came spinning back to them with the force of a rifle-bullet. The speed had been terrific, and the wrench of pulling up wrought dire confusion. Followed a sharp scrimmage, a bewildering jumble of horses and men, rattling of sticks and unlimited breaking of the third commandment; till the ball shot out again into the open, skimming, like a live thing, through a haze of fine white dust, Desmond close upon it, as before; the Hussar "forwards" in hot pursuit.