"A cat, by ----" exclaimed one of the neighbors. "I saw him!" Barksdale led the way for the little group behind. Edward could have closed in, but his anxiety for the girl was now developed into genuine fear. The tumult was the signal for Lorna to begin a series of equine calisthenics, more distinguished for violence than beauty. For she planted her heels in the face of nature repeatedly, seemingly in an impartial determination to destroy all the cardinal points of the compass. This exercise she varied with agile leaps upward, and bunching of feet as she came down.
Edward was about to dismount to take hold of her when Lorna, probably discerning that it was unnecessary to get rid of her rider before joining the rout, went past him like a leaf upon a hurricane. He planted spurs in his horse's side and followed with equal speed, but she was now far ahead. He saw her skim past Barksdale, and that gentleman with but a slight motion of his knees increased his speed. And then Lorna and the thoroughbred went straight into the wall of cane, but instead of a headlong plunge and a mixture of human being and struggling animal floundering in the break, he simply saw--nothing. The pair went out of sight like an awkwardly snuffed candle.
He had no time to wonder; the next instant he was going through a hog path in the cane, the tall stems rattling madly against his knees, his eyes dazed by the rushing past of so many near and separate points of vision. Then he rose in air. There was a flash of water underneath and down he came into the path. The open world burst upon him again like a beautiful picture. He only saw the flying figure of the girl upon a mad colt. Was she trying in vain to hold it? Would she lose her head? Would her nerve forsake her? Heavens!! She is plying her whip with might and main, and the man on the thoroughbred at her heels looks back over his shoulder into Edward's white face and smiles. Then they disappear into the green wall again and again the world is reborn on the other side.
The pace tells. One by one Edward passes the riders. The old general comes up at last. As Mary goes by, he gives what Edward supposes to be the old rebel yell of history and then they are out of the end of one arm of the Y and heading for the clump of cane.