"Why don't you 'boot and saddle' too, Honor, an' ride along with us?" "I only wish I could! I'd love to go! But I _must_ stay with Evelyn. She is upset and nervous about Theo as it is." "Saints alive! How _can_ you put up with her at all--at all!" muttered irrepressible Frank. "But hush, now, here's the blessed fellow himself!" Theo Desmond strode rapidly down the square hall, hung with trophies of the chase and implements of war--an incongruous figure enough, in forage cap and long brown boots with gleaming spurs, his sword buckled on over his evening clothes. He snatched a long clasp-knife from the wall in passing, and the Irishwoman, with an nod of approval, hurried out into the verandah, where the impatient horses could be heard champing their bits. Desmond had a friendly smile for Honor in passing. "Pity you can't come too. Be good to Ladybird. Don't let her work herself into a fever about nothing." * * * * * For eight breathless minutes the grey and the dun sped through the warm night air, under a rising moon, their shadows fleeing before them, long and black,--two perspiring saises following zealously in their wake;--till their riders drew rein before a pandemonium of scurrying men and horses, silhouetted against a background of fire. The great pile of sun-dried bedding burnt merrily: sending up fierce tongues of flame, that shamed the moonlight, as dawn shames the lamp. A brisk wind from the hills caught up shreds and flakes from the burning mass, driving them hither and thither, to the sore distraction of man and beast. Lithe forms of grass-cutters and water-carriers, in the scantiest remnants of clothing, leaped and pranced on the outskirts of the fire, like demons in a realistic hell. In valiant spurts and jerks, alternating with ignominious flight, they were combating that column of flame and smoke with thimblefuls of water, flung out of stable buckets, or squirted from mussacks. They were beating it also with stript branches, making night radiant with a thousand sparks. But the soaring flames jeered at their pigmy efforts; twinkled derisively on their glistening bodies; and assailed the vast composure of the skies with leaping blades of light. To the bewildering confusion of movement was added a no less bewildering tumult of sound, whose most heart-piercing note was the maddened scream of horses; and whose lesser elements included shouts of officers and sowars; high-pitched lamentations from the audience of natives; the barking of dogs; and the drumming of a hundred hoofs upon the iron-hard ground.