While Brummel and
Carbonilla, fatigued by the heaviness of the ground, began to lose the
pace, Mallecho steadily increased the vehemence of his rush and had
nearly reconquered his former position, scenting victory already with
his fiery nostrils. Flying over the last obstacle, he passed
Brummel--his head was level with Carbonilla's shoulder--a hundred yards
from the post he skirted the barrier--on--on--leaving Caligaro's black
mare ten lengths behind. The bell rang--a furious clapping of hands,
like the pelting of hail-stones, and then a dull roar spread through the
great crowd on the green sward under the flood of brilliant sunshine.
As he entered the enclosure, Andrea Sperelli thought to
himself--'Fortune is with me to-day, but how will it be to-morrow?' And
feeling the breath of triumph surge round him, a vague sense of
resentment rose up in him against the possibilities of the morrow. He
would have preferred to face it to-day and get it over, that he might
enjoy a double victory and then taste the fruit offered to him by the
hand of Ippolita Albonico. He was possessed, for the moment, by that
inexplicable intoxication which results--with certain men of
intellect--from the exercise of their physical powers, the experience of
their courage and the revelation of their inherent brutality. The
substratum of primitive ferocity which exists at the bottom of most of
us rushes to the surface, on occasion, with curious vehemence, and under
the skin-deep varnish of modern civilisation, our hearts swell sometimes
with a nameless sanguinary fury, and visions of carnage rise up before
us.
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