Under Two Flags

ours of the short, sultry Spanish night. "Half an hour, at least," was the answer. "Very well, then I will turn in and get some sleep," said th

ry, depending on him alone to save the Guards of England from defeat and shame; their honor and their hopes rested on his solitary head; by him they would be

s with friends and foes. Miles of the ridge and furrow, stiff fences of terrible blackthorn, double posts and rails, yawners and croppers both, tough as Shire and Stewards could make them, awaited him on the morrow; on his beautiful lean head capfuls of money were piled by the Service and the Talent; and in his stride all the

miniatures of his sire and of his dam: Lord of the Isles, one of the greatest hunters that the grass countries ever saw sent across them; and Bayadere, a wild-pigeon-blue mare of Circassia. How, furthermore, he stretched up his long line of ancestry by the Sovereign, out of Queen of Ros

r ears, almost transparent in full light; well ribbed-up, fine shoulders, admirable girth and loins; legs clean, slender, firm, promising splendid knee action; sixteen hands high, and up to thirteen stone; clever enough for anything, trained to close and open country, a perfect brook jumper, a clipper at fencing; taking a great deal of riding, as anyone could tel

dily on in his warm and spacious box, dreaming doubtless of days of victory, cub-hunting in the reedy October woods and pastures, of the ringing notes of the horn, and the sweet music of the pack, and the glorious quick burst up-win

nt as stars, a little dreamy and mournful, and as infinitely caressing when he looked at what he loved, as they could blaze full of light and fire when danger was near and rivalry against him. How loyally such eyes have looked at me over the paddock fence

pleasurable excitation; the door opened, a hand held him some su

rubbed his forehead against his master's shoulder, and pushed hi

up the body clothing to feel the firm, cool skin, loosened one of the bandages, passed his hand from th

shall wi

group of grooms and helpers, took a bit of straw out of his mouth, and smiled a smile of sublime scorn and securit

laughed a lit

it us; are there, old fellow?" he said to the horse, as he passed his palm over the wit

licking of his lips to express the nonchalance with which he viewed his share in the contest, and his tranq

e form, Rake, and

and he's the very best of the strain," said Rake, as he held up his lantern across the stab

ss the great stone yard, with the end of a huge cheroot glimmering through the gloom. "So he need be, to pull me through. The Ducal and the October let me in for it enough; I never was closer in my life. The deuce! If I don't do the distance to-morrow I shan't have sovereigns enough to play po

habitually, though shadowed now as he crossed the courtyard after his after-midnight visit to his steeple-chaser. He had backed Forest King heavily, and stood to win or lose a cracker on his own riding on the morrow; and, though he had found suffic

ope of London seasons, Paris winters, ducal houses in the hunting months, dinners at the Pall Mall Clubs, dinners at the Star and Garter, dinners irreproachable everywhere; cottage for Ascot week, yachting with the R. V. Y. Club, Derby handicaps at Hornsey, pretty chorus-singers set up in Bijou villas, dashing rosieres taken over to Baden, warm corners in Belvoir, Savernake, and Longeat battues, and all the rest of the general programme, with no drawbac

orry easily and shirks it persistently. "Sufficient for the day," etc., was the essence of his creed; and if he had enough to lay a fiver at night on the rubber, he was quite able to forget for the time that he wanted five hundred for settling-day in the morning, and had not an idea how to get it. There was not a trace of anxiety on him when he o

deration; others were talking hard and fast, and through the air heavily weighted with the varieties of tobacco, from tiny cigarettes to giant cheroots, from rough bowls full of cavendish to sybaritic rose-water hookahs, a Babel of sentences rose together: "Gave him too much riding, the idiot." "Take the field, bar one." "Nothing so good for the mare as a little niter and antimony in her mash." "Not at all! The Regent and Rake cross in the old strain, always was black-tan with a white frill." "The Earl's as good a fellow as Lady Flora; always give you a mount." "Nothing like a Kate Terry though, on

awfully," he was stating as Forest Ki

supply you with apes fully developed to any a

id she'll never be cured, poor thing!-so I put my head out and asked what was up? We'd run into a cattle train. Anybody hurt? No, nobody hurt; but we were to get out. 'I'll be shot if I get out,' I told 'em, 'till I've finished the rubber.' 'But you must get out,' said the guard; 'carriages must be moved.' 'Nobody says "must" to him,' said Van (he'd drank more Perles du Rhin than was good for him in Doncaster); 'don't you know the Seraph?' Man stared. 'Yes, sir; know the Seraph, sir; leastways, did, sir, afore he died; see him once

h himself after the narrative-biggest, best-tempered, and wildest of men in or out of the Service, despite the angelic

Seraph?" laughed Cecil, substituting an amber mouth-piece for his half-fini

ll," chorused ha

's too much of a gentleman to put us all up a tre

dolphus), where he was curled up almost invisible, except for the movement of the jasmine stick of his chibouque. "That brute, Day Star, is a splendid fencer, and for a brook ju

ng among the rose-water; "the man I'm afraid of is that fellow from the Tenth; he's as light as a feather and as hard as steel. I watched

and January as you spent in Paris. Even the week you've been in the Shires you haven't trained a bit; you've been waltzing or playing baccarat till five in the morning, and taking no end of sodas after to bring y

e, with its fair hue and its gentle languor on which there was not a single trace of the outrecuidance attributed to him. Both he and the Seraph could lead the wildest life of any men in Europe without looking one shadow more worn than the brightest beauty of the season, and could hold wassail in riotous rivalry till the sun ros

n ride, let him. If he's born to the pigskin he'll be in at the distance safe enough, whether he smokes or don't smoke, drink or don't drink. As for training on raw chops, giving up wine, living like the very deuce

sked another Guardsman, Sir Vere Bellingham; "Severe," as he was chr

lo. "I said, 'there, sir, I'll help you thrash Cambridge, if you like, but train I won't for you or for all the University. I've been Captain of the Eton Eight; but I didn't keep my crew on tea and toast. I fattened 'em regularly three times a week on venison and champagne at Christopher's. Very happy to feed yours, too, if you like;

irsty by the recollection, dipped his

y atom of flesh off him like a jockey, he ought to be struck out for the stakes, to my mind. 'Tisn't a question of riding, then

ne's morals, at any rat

Vere; you're such a quintessence of decorum and respectability yourself! I say-any

him at Aldershot. Fine rider; give you a good bit of trouble, Beauty. Hasn't been in England for years; troop been such a while at Calcut

Lily blood, out of that Irish

back over Brixworth-eh, Beauty?" said the Seraph, who believed devoutly in his comrade, with all the loving l

slight a dash of sadness in his words; the thought crossed him of how boldly, how straightly, how gallant

e Household do 'all you know.' I haven't hedged a shilling, not laid off a farthing, Bert

thankless; but under his drooped lids a glance, frank and warm, rested for the moment on the Seraph's leonine strength and Raphaelesque

ted smoke circled heavily round; making a halo of Turkish above the gold locks of the Titanic Seraph, steeping Chesterfield's velvets in strong odors of Ca

rokes of five; they had only returned from a ball three miles off, when Cecil had paid his visit to the loose box

time if you like, Tom; it wo

iness of his wrist and the keenness of his eye by any such additional tempting of Providence, and went off itself i

fort and spaciousness, and when Cecil sauntered into his old quarters, familiar from boyhood, he could not have been better off in his own luxurious haunts in Piccadilly. Moreover, the first thing that

and he looked at it with a smile. "Ah, my lady, my lady!" he t

his hand, with a smile that was almost tender, though it was still much more amused. "I suppose we do," he concluded at last; "at least quite as much as is ever worth while. Passions don't do for the drawi

drifting heavily up before the dawn, and the state of the weather, and the chance of its being rainy, filled his thoughts, to the utter exclusion of the donor of that bright gold-laden dainty gift. "I hope to goodness the