Chapter 55

The Last Card

Chukkers was beaten out of sight. The Oriental in him blurted to the top. He lost his head and his temper and began to butcher his mount.

As he drove the mare down the run home, foaming and bloody, he was flaying her.

The Americans had all lost money, some of them fortunes: that didn't matter so much. Their idol had been beaten fair and square: that mattered a great deal. But she was still their idol, and Chukkers had butchered her before their eyes.

And he was Chukkers!--the greaser!

They rose up in wrath like a vast, avenging cloud, and went raving over the barrier on to the course in tumultuous black flood. The ruck of beaten horses, bobbing home one by one, crashed into them. The mob, without regard for its shattered atoms, moved on like one. A roaring sea of humanity swung on its blind way. Above the dark waters jockeys in silken jackets and on sweating thoroughbreds drifted to and fro like helpless butterflies. While in contrast to these many-coloured creatures of faerie, the great-coated and helmeted police in blue, on horses, hairy and solid as themselves, butted their way through the clamorous deeps, as they made for the rock round which the angry waves were breaking.

They had their work cut out, and used their bludgeons with a will.

Round the man upon the beaten favourite the mob swirled and screamed like a hyena-pack at the kill.

Chukkers was a brute; but to do him justice he was not a coward.

The high-cheeked Mongolian, yellow with anger and chagrin, was using his whip without mercy.

The hub-bub was as of a battle the most horrible, for there were women in it, screaming for blood.

"Lynch him!" came the roar.

"Pull him off!"

"Trample him!"

"Stick him with this!"

Monkey Brand, who had suddenly come to life, had hold of the winner, sweating, amiable, entirely unmoved by the pandemonium around, and was leading him away into the Paddock through the outskirts of the howling mob.

The crowd was too maddened to pay attention to the little man and his great charge. Those who were not bent on murdering Chukkers were absorbed in watching those who were.

Old Mat, trotting at Silver's side, was chuckling and cooing to himself like a complacent baby, as the pair descended the Grand Stand and made for the Paddock.

"Yes," he was saying, "my bankers'll be please--very please, they will. And good cause why. That's a hundud thousand quid, Mr. Silver, in my pocket--all a-jinglin' and a-tinglin'. 'Ark to em!--like 'erald angels on the go." He paused, touched the other's arm, and panted huskily: "Funny thing! A minute since it was in the h'air--ewaporated, as the sayin' is. Now it's here--froze tight." He slapped his pocket. "Makes the 'ead to think and the 'eart to rejoice, as the Psalmist said on much a similar occasion. Only we'd best not tell Mar. Wonderful woman, Mar, Mr. Silver, and grows all the while more wonderfulerer. Only where it is is--there it is." He lifted his rogue-eye to the young man's face and cried in an ecstasy of glee. "Oh, how glorioushly does the wicked flourish--if only so be they'll keep their eyeballs skinned!"

At the gate the White Hat stopped him.

"So you've got up on 'em again, Mr. Woodburn," he said. "Congratulations, Mr. Silver."

On the course the pair ran into Monkey Brand, leading the winner home.

"Here, sir!" he cried, seeming excited for the first time in his life. "All O.K. Bit giddified like. That's all. Take the horse. The Three J's mean business, I tell ye. I must be moving."

Silver looked up at the little jockey perched aloft upon the brown.

"All right?" he asked keenly.

The other, whose peaked cap was drawn far over his eyes, nodded down through the tumult, saying no word.

At the moment Jaggers ran past, trying to get at his jockey. Joses, slobbering at the mouth, was shouting in the trainer's ear.

Both men plunged into the vortex.

"Easy all!" came Jaggers's priest-like voice. "Give him a chance, boys. We aren't beat yet."

"Win, tie, or wrangle!" muttered Old Mat. "That's the Three J's all right."

The mounted police were shepherding Chukkers off the course into the Paddock. There was murder in his face. He swung about and showed his yellow fangs like a mobbed wolf at the pack baying at his heels.

Once inside the Paddock he was just going to dismount, when Jaggers, Joses, and Ikey Aaronsohnn rushed at him and held him on.

"Stick to her!" screamed Joses.

The little group drifted past Old Mat and Jim Silver, who was holding the winner. Four-Pound-the Second's jockey had already disappeared into the weighing-room.

"Ain't done yet," screamed the jockey vengefully as he passed.

"You're never done," said Silver quietly, as he stroked the muzzle of the reeking brown. "Never could take a licking like a gentleman!"

The jockey, beside himself, leaned out toward the other.

"Want it across the ---- mug, do ye, Silver?" he yelled. "One way o' winnin'!"

"Come, then, Mr. Woodburn. This won't do!" cried Jaggers austerely as he passed.

"Of course it won't," answered Old Mat. "Dropped a rare packet among you, ain't you? Think you're goin' to let that pass without tryin' on the dirty?"

The White Hat leaned down from the Grand Stand.

"What's the trouble, Mr. Jaggers?" he cried.

"Miss Woodburn rode the winner, my lord," answered the trainer at the top of his voice.

The words ran like a flame along the top of the crowd.

They leapt from mouth to mouth, out of the Paddock, on to the course, and round it. And where they fell there was instant hush followed by a roar, in which a new note sounded: _All was not lost._ The Americans, cast down to earth a moment since, rose like a wild-maned breaker towering before it falls in thunder and foam upon the beach. There was wrath still in their clamour; but their cry now was for Justice and not for Revenge.

John Bull had been at it again. The fair jockey was a girl. Some had known it all along. Others had guessed it from the first. All had been sure there would be hanky-panky.

As they came shoving off the course into the Paddock, and heaved about the weighing-room, the howl subdued into a buzz as of a swarm of angry bees.

The thousands were waiting for a sign, and the growl that rose from them was broken only by groans, cat-calls, whistles, and vengeful bursts of

_Hands off and no hanky-panky!_

Old Mat, Jim Silver, and the great horse stood on the edge of the throng, quite unconcerned.

Many noticed them; not a few essayed enquiries.

"Is your jockey a gal, Mr. Woodburn?"

"So they says," answered Old Mat.

"Where's Miss Woodburn then?"

"Inside, they tell me."

He nodded to the door of the weighing-room, which opened at the moment.

In it, above the crowd, appeared the jockey with the green jacket, his cap well over his eyes.

There was an instant hush. Then English and Americans, bookies and backers, began to bawl against each other.

"Are you a gal?" screamed some one in the crowd.

"No, I ain't," came the shrill, defiant answer.

The voice did not satisfy the crowd.

"Take off your cap, Miss!" yelled another.

"Let's see your face!"

Joses, who was standing by the steps that led up to the weighing-room, leapt on to them and snatched the cap from the jockey's head.

He stood displayed before them, fair-haired, close-cropped, shy, and a little sullen.

There was a moment's pause. Then divergent voices shot heavenward and clashed against each other.

"It is!"

"It's her!"

"That's Miss Woodburn!"

"No, it ain't!"

Words were becoming blows, and there were altercations everywhere, when the Clerk of the Scales appeared on the steps and held up his hand for silence.

"Where _is_ Miss Woodburn?" he called.

The words confirmed suspicion, and brought forth a roar of cheering from the Americans.

"Here, sir!" panted a voice.

Monkey Brand was forcing his way through the crowd, heralded by the police. Behind him followed a slight figure in dark blue.

"Is that Miss Woodburn?" called the Clerk.

"Yes," replied a deep voice. "Here I am."

"Would you step up here?"

The girl ran up the steps, and took her place by the little jockey. Whoever else was disconcerted, it was not she.

A sound that was not quite a groan rose from the watching crowd and died away.

The girl gave her hand to the jockey.

"Well ridden, Albert," she said, and in the silence her words were heard by thousands.

The lad touched his forehead, and took her hand sheepishly.

"Thank you, Miss," he answered.

Then the storm broke, and the bookies who had made millions over the defeat of the favourite led the roar.

There was no mistaking the matter now. The Boys had been sold again.

The rougher elements amongst Ikey's Own sought a scape-goat.

They found him in Joses.

Chukkers came out of the weighing-room and deliberately struck the fat man. That started it: the crowd did the rest.

Old Mat and Jim Silver waited on the outskirts of the hub-bub.

The American Ambassador and his tall dark daughter stood near by.

"What stories they tell," said the great man in his gentle way.

"Don't they, sir?" answered Old Mat, wiping an innocent blue eye. "And they gets no better as the years go by. They saddens me and Mar. They does reelly."

Boy Woodburn, making her way through the crowd, joined the little group.

"Congratulations, Miss Woodburn," said the Ambassador's daughter shyly. "The best horse won."

The fair girl beamed on the dark.

"Thank you, Miss Whitney," she answered. "A good race. You were giving us a ton of weight."

Perhaps the girl was a little paler than her wont; but there was no touch of lyrical excitement about her. Outwardly she was the least-moved person in the Paddock.

Jim Silver's eyes were shining down on her.

"Well," he said.

She led away. He followed at her shoulder, the horse's bridle over his arm.

"You've won your hundred thousand," she said.

His eyes were wistful and smiling as they dwelt upon her figure that drooped a little.

"Hadn't a bean on," he said.

She did not seem surprised.

Her hand was on the wet neck of the horse, her eyes on her hand.

Then she raised them to his, and they were shining with rainbow beauty.

"I know you hadn't," she said.

Her hand touched his.

* * * * *

Close by them a black mass was seething round something upon the ground.

"That's Joses," she said. "Stop the worry, will you?--and send Monkey Brand to take the horse."

Jim Silver turned. Somewhere in the middle of that tossing mass was a human being.

Using his strength remorselessly, the young man broke his way through. By the time he reached the centre of the maelstrom the police had cleared a space round the fallen man.

He lay panting in the mud, a desolate and dreadful figure, his waistcoat burst open, and shirt protruding, his shock of red hair a-loose on the ground.

Jim was not the first to get to the fallen man.

Monkey Brand was already kneeling at his side, bottle in hand.

"Oh, my! Mr. Joses, my!" the little jockey was saying. "What you want is just a drop o' comfort out o' me bottle. Open a little, and I'll pour."

Silver was just in time.

"That'll do, Brand," he said. "I'll see to this. Give me the bottle. You go to Miss Boy."

A doctor was called in and reported that the fat man's condition was serious. An ambulance was brought, and Joses removed.

Silver saw it off the ground.

As it came to the gate, Chukkers, on his way to his motor, passed it.

"He deserves all he's got," he said. "He's a bad un."

"He's served you pretty well, anyway," answered Jim angrily.