"You can't do it," she called.
In reply he dug the heels of his heavy boots into the horse's flanks and
came on recklessly. She thought the horse would either refuse or try
to get up and roll back on its rider. It sprang at the bank and mounted
like a wild cat. There was a noise of falling stones, a shower of
scattered earth-clods dropping downward, and he was beside her, white
with dust, streaming with sweat, panting as if the labouring breath
would rip his chest open, with the horse's foam on his forehead, and a
savage and yet exultant gleam in his eyes.
They looked at each other in silence, while their horses, standing
quietly, lowered their narrow, graceful heads and touched noses with
delicate inquiry. Then she said:
"I almost thought----"
She stopped.
"Yes?" he said, on a great gasping breath that was like a sob.
"--that you were off to the centre of the earth, or--I don't know what I
thought. You aren't hurt?"
"No."
He could only speak in monosyllables as yet. She looked his horse over.
"He won't give much more trouble just now. Shall we ride back?"
As she spoke she threw a longing glance at the far desert, at the verge
of which was a dull green line betokening the distant palms of an oasis.
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