He made a frightful effort to keep his spurs at his horse's sides,
overcome by terror at the thought that his senses might leave him. There
was a muffled roar in his ears, and through that roar he caught the
hard, clear sound of Andrea Sperelli's 'Hi!'
More susceptible to the voice than any other mode of urging, Mallecho
simply devoured the intervening space; he was not more than two or three
lengths behind Brummel--was on the point of joining--of passing him.
'Hi!'
A high barrier intersected the course. Rutolo actually did not see it,
having lost all sense of his surroundings, and only preserved a furious
instinct to remain glued to his horse and force it along, never mind
how. Brummel jumped, but receiving no aid from his rider, caught his
hind legs against the barrier, and came down so awkwardly on the other
side that the rider lost his stirrups, without, however, coming out of
the saddle, and he continued to run. Andrea Sperelli now took the lead,
Giannetto Rutolo, without having recovered his stirrups, being second,
with Paolo Caligaro close upon his heels; the duke, retarded by a
refusal from Satirist, came last. In this order they passed the grand
stand. They heard a confused clamour but it soon died away.
The spectators held their breath in suspense. From time to time,
somebody would remark aloud on the various incidents of the running.
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