Hollyhock had, therefore, her own way entirely with her precious treasure, and for his sake she would not, if possible, endanger the life of Lightning Speed. She knew well that the leap of twelve feet which she intended to take would be a mere nothing to Lightning Speed in the ordinary hours of daylight; but with the moon shining brilliantly and casting strange lights and also queer black shadows, and with the terrific noise made by the foaming torrent below, the horse, brave as he was, might refuse the leap at the last moment.
'At any cost he must not do that,' thought Hollyhock.
'You must not disgrace me, my bonnie beastie,' she whispered into his sensitive ear; and certainly the Arab looked as if he had no intention of disgracing the girl he loved.
She took him to the gorge on two Saturdays and Sundays in succession, and gave him imperious orders to leap across, which he did without a moment's hesitation, leaping back again with equal ease. But this was daylight. Things looked different at night. Animals were known to see strange, uncanny things at night; the shadows were not mere shadows to them. They were monsters beckoning them to destruction. The light, too, of the full moon--for it would be full moon that night--would add to the terrors of Lightning Speed. That intense white world would be as terrifying to him as the blackness of the gorge and the sudden awful gap over which he was expected to leap.
Now the prizes were to be presented to the girls of the school by the great Duke himself, and Mrs Macintyre assumed that the three or four young maids who were to perform their deeds of daring would choose the daytime for the display of their courage.
As a matter of fact, very few girls did go in for this prize--five or six at the most--and these, so far as Mrs Macintyre could tell, chose the broad light of day to show the stuff they were made of. It never entered her wildest dreams that Hollyhock would perform her feat, her daring adventure, about midnight. It was _then_ that the moon would be at the full.
Hollyhock could not have carried out the design without the help of Magsie, who had got her sweetheart, Joey Comfort, one of the grooms at The Garden, to bring Lightning Speed to the Palace of the Kings. But even Magsie, who knew the horse was there, had not the faintest idea that her young mistress would take out so spirited a steed in the uncanny hours of the night. She did, however, wonder during the day on which the other competitors were performing their feats of bravery why her favourite, Miss Hollyhock, was holding back. One by one the different girls did different small things, which were brave enough in their way, and all the time a mistress stood by and marked the girl and her achievement. But Hollyhock had not come forward. She, who was so extraordinarily brave, kept in the background. The girls were not allowed to be questioned as to their intentions in this open competition, and the teachers therefore assumed that although the different essays had gone to the head-mistress in their sealed envelopes under feigned names, and the other prizes had been competed for and were waiting a judgment in Mrs Macintyre's room, Holly would doubtless have plenty of time to perform something brilliant, and they only hoped not too reckless, early on the following day. That would be quite time enough for her deed of courage, and no one thought of a midnight ride--a wild, half-despairing girl, and a horse so full at once of timidity and courage, who would go forth to perform their feat of all feats at the hour of midnight.