So gently he quickened, yet making no call; Right Royal replied as though knowing it all, He passed Kubbadar who was ready to fall, Then he strode up to Hadrian, up to his girth, They eyed the Dyke's glitter and picked out a berth. Now the race reached the water and over it flew In a sweep of great muscle strained taut and guyed true. There Muscatel floundered and came to a halt, Muscatel, the bay chaser without any fault. Right Royal's head lifted, Right Royal took charge, On the left near the railings, ears cocked, going large, Leaving Hadrian behind as a yacht leaves a barge. Though Hadrian's rider called something unheard, He was past him at speed like the albatross bird, Running up to Path Finder, they leaped, side by side, And the foam from Path Finder flecked white on his hide. And on landing, he lifted, while Path Finder dwelt, And his noble eye brightened from the glory he felt, And the mud flung behind him flicked Path Finder's chest, As he left him behind and went on to the rest. Charles cast a glance back, but he could not divine Why the man on Path Finder should make him a sign, Nor why Hadrian's rider should shout, and then point, With his head nodded forward and a jerked elbow joint. But he looked as he pointed, both forward and down, And he saw that Right Royal was smeared like a clown, Smeared red and bespattered with flecks of bright blood, From a blood-vessel burst, as he well understood. And just as he saw it, Right Royal went strange As one whom Death's finger has touched to a change; He went with a stagger that sickened the soul, As a force stricken feeble and out of control. Charles thought, "He is dying, and this is the end, I am losing my Emmy and killing my friend; He was hurt when we fell, as I thought at the first, And I've forced him three miles with a blood-vessel burst. And his game heart went on." Here a rush close behind Made him cast a glance back with despair in his mind. It was Cimmeroon rushing, his lips twitcht apart, His eyes rolled back sightless, and death in his heart. He reached to Right Royal, then fell, and was dead, Nevermore to stretch reins with his beautiful head. A gush of bright blood filled his mouth as he sank, And he reached out his hoofs to the heave of his flank, And Charles, leaning forward, made certain, and cried, "This is Cimmeroon's blood, blown in passing beside, And Roy's going strangely was just that he felt Death coming behind him, or blood that he smelt." So Charles's heart lightened and Royal went steady As a water bound seaward set free from an eddy, As a water sucked downward to leap at a weir Sucked swifter and swifter till it shoot like a spear.