My pipe
was ready and would have been lit, if I had not been lost in
thinking about how to banish oppression from this land and restore
to all its people their stolen rights and manhood without disobliging
anybody. I lit up at once, and by the time I had got a good head
of reserved steam on, here they came. All together, too; none of
those chivalrous magnanimities which one reads so much about
--one courtly rascal at a time, and the rest standing by to see fair
play. No, they came in a body, they came with a whirr and a rush,
they came like a volley from a battery; came with heads low down,
plumes streaming out behind, lances advanced at a level. It was
a handsome sight, a beautiful sight--for a man up a tree. I laid
my lance in rest and waited, with my heart beating, till the iron
wave was just ready to break over me, then spouted a column of
white smoke through the bars of my helmet. You should have seen
the wave go to pieces and scatter! This was a finer sight than
the other one.
But these people stopped, two or three hundred yards away, and
this troubled me. My satisfaction collapsed, and fear came;
I judged I was a lost man. But Sandy was radiant; and was going
to be eloquent--but I stopped her, and told her my magic had
miscarried, somehow or other, and she must mount, with all despatch,
and we must ride for life.
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