563296589345

A sepoy brought the pony, and Flory pretended to examine the curb-chain. In reality he was
temporising until Elizabeth should be diirty or forty yards away. He made up his mind that he would
stick the peg exactly at the moment when she passed (it is easy enough on the small Burma ponies,
provided that they will gallop straight), and men ride up to her with it on his point. That was
obviously the right move. He did not want her to think that that pink-faced young whelp was the only
person who could ride. He was wearing shorts, which are uncomfortable to ride in, but he knew that,
like nearly everyone, he looked his best on horseback.
Elizabeth was approaching. Flory stepped into the saddle, took the spear from the Indian and
waved it in greeting to Elizabeth. She made no response, however. Probably she was shy in front of
Verrall. She was looking away, towards the cemetery, and her cheeks were pink.
‘Chalo,’ said Flory to the Indian, and then dug his knees into the horse’s sides.
The very next instant, before the horse had taken two bounds, Flory found himself hurtling through
the air, hitting the ground with a crack that wrenched his shoulder almost out of joint, and rolling over
and over. Mercifully the spear fell clear of him. He lay supine, with a blurred vision of blue sky and
floating vultures. Then his eyes focused on the khaki pagri and dark face of a Sikh, bearded to the
eyes, bending over him.
‘What’s happened?’ he said in English, and he raised himself painfully on his elbow. The Sikh
made some gruff answer and pointed. Flory saw the chestnut pony careering away over the maidan,
with the saddle under its belly. The girth had not been tightened and had slipped round; hence his fall.
When Flory sat up he found that he was in extreme pain. The right shoulder of his shirt was torn
open and already soaking with blood, and he could feel more blood oozing from his cheek. The hard
earth had grazed him. His hat, too, was gone. With a deadly pang he remembered Elizabeth, and he
saw her coming towards him, barely ten yards away, looking straight at him as he sprawled there so
ignominiously. My God, my God! he thought, O my God, what a fool I must look! The thought of it
even drove away the pain of the fall. He clapped a hand over his birthmark, though the other cheek
was the damaged one.
‘Elizabeth! Hullo, Elizabeth! Good morning!’
He had called out eagerly, appealingly, as one does when one is conscious of looking a fool. She
did not answer, and what was almost incredible, she walked on without pausing even for an instant,
as though she had neither seen nor heard him.
‘Elizabeth!’ he called again, taken aback; ‘did you see me fall? The saddle slipped. The fool of a
sepoy hadn’t——’
There was no question that she had heard him now. She turned her face full upon him for a moment,
and looked at him and through him as though he had not existed. Then she gazed away into the
distance beyond the cemetery. It was terrible. He called after her in dismay–
‘Elizabeth! I say, Elizabeth!’
She passed on without a word, without a sign, without a look. She was walking sharply down the
road, with a click of heels, her back turned upon him.
The sepoys had come round him now, and Verrall, too, had ridden across to where Flory lay. Some
of the sepoys had saluted Elizabeth; Verrall had ignored her, perhaps not seeing her. Flory rose stiffly