Hundreds glanced back to see who rode
so fast, and thousands turned their heads to know why the others
looked; and all, seeing the Queen, pressed back to right and left,
making way, partly in respect for her and much in fear for themselves.
Far up the rising ground, the riot ceased as suddenly as it had begun;
the men-at-arms drew back in shame, and many tried to hide their faces,
lest they should be known again. The tide of human beings divided
before the swiftly riding women, as the cloud-bank splits before the
northwest wind in winter, and the white mare sped like a ray of light
between long wavering lines of rough faces and gleaming arms.
The Queen glanced scornfully to each side as she passed in a gale, and
the dear sense of power soothed her stirred pride. Still the line
opened, and still she rode on, scarcely rising and sinking with the
mare's wonderful stride. But the way that was made for her was not
straight to the King now; the throng was more dense there, and the
people parted as they could, so that the three ladies had to follow the
only open passage. Suddenly, before them, there was an end, where the
rolling ground broke away sharply in a fall of forty feet to the edge
of the lake below. The heads of the last of the crowd who stood at the
brink were clear and distinct against the pale sky. The Queen could not
see the water, but she felt that there was death in the leap. Her two
companions looked beyond her and saw also.
Eleanor dropped her lance quietly to the right, so that it should not
make her followers fall, and with hands low and weight thrown back in
the deep saddle she pulled with all her might.
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