In two minutes, a frenzied chorus was filling the narrow gorge, the cry of the hounds, the hurrying reiterated notes of the horn, the shouts of the Whips rating on stragglers, echoing and re-echoing from cliff to cliff. Before the riders had committed themselves to the descent, the leading hounds were straining up the opposite cliff face; slithering, and slipping, the horses were hurried down a track that goats had made between rocks and bracken, and, at the base, found themselves confronted with the problem of the river. The River Styx could hardly look less attractive than did the Feorish, as it swirled, swollen and foaming, among its rocks, its dark torrent plunging from steep to steep in roaring waterfalls. Some country men, high on the cliffs, howled directions, and the Master, his eye on his hounds struggling with the fierce stream, went on down the gorge until the howls changed their metre, thus indicating to the experienced that the moment had come to cross the river. The ford, such as it was, permitted some half dozen of the horses to cross it, splashing and floundering, wobbling perilously from the round and slimy back of one sunken rock to another. Judith and the grey mare, following close on Bill Kirby's heels, got over neatly, and were away after him over the top of the hill before Christian's turn came. The ancient and skilled Harry addressed himself to the task with elderly caution, feeling his way with suspicion, creeping across with slow-poised feet, and was so delicate over the effort, that Larry's cob, following too close on him, was checked at a critical moment. He struggled, slipped, recovered, found himself still hindered by Harry, and, with a final stagger, lost footing altogether, and rolled over. Cottingham, subsequently recounting the incident, declared that _he_ thought, he did, that the young genel'm was done for; but "that little Miss Christeen--she's a nummer she is!--she off'n 'er 'oss before I fair sees what's 'appened, and she ketches the young chap by the 'ed, and pulls 'im clear! Her did indeed! A lill' gurl like what she is too! Her's wuth more than ten big men!" What a singular encomium, "a nummer" might mean, was a fact known only to Cottingham, but it was incontrovertibly Christian's eel-like swiftness of action that had saved Larry from a worse accident. Small and slender though she was, she was wiry, and she had the gift of being able instantly to concentrate every force of mind and body upon a desired point--a rare gift and a precious one. But when she and Larry, dripping and hatless, were hauled into safety by other helpers, less swift but more powerful, it was found that Larry had not come out of the Feorish unscathed. His left hand was hanging, helpless, with a broken wrist. CHAPTER IX