arm.
Ugh-lomi was pitched a foot in the air, came down again, up again, his
stomach was hit violently, and then his knees got a grip of something
between them. He found himself clutching with knees, feet, and hands,
careering violently with extraordinary oscillation through the air--his
axe gone heaven knows whither. "Hold tight," said Mother Instinct, and
he did.

He was aware of a lot of coarse hair in his face, some of it between his
teeth, and of green turf streaming past in front of his eyes. He saw the
shoulder of the Master Horse, vast and sleek, with the muscles flowing
swiftly under the skin. He perceived that his arms were round the neck,
and that the violent jerkings he experienced had a sort of rhythm.

Then he was in the midst of a wild rush of tree-stems, and then there
were fronds of bracken about, and then more open turf. Then a stream of
pebbles rushing past, little pebbles flying sideways athwart the stream
from the blow of the swift hoofs. Ugh-lomi began to feel frightfully
sick and giddy, but he was not the stuff to leave go simply because he
was uncomfortable.

He dared not leave his grip, but he tried to make himself more
comfortable. He released his hug on the neck, gripping the mane
instead. He slipped his knees forward, and pushing back, came into a
sitting position where the quarters broaden. It was nervous work, but he
managed it, and at last he was fairly seated astride, breathless indeed,
and uncertain, but with that frightful pounding of his body at any rate
relieved.

Slowly the fragments of Ugh-lomi's mind got into order again. The pace
seemed to him terrific, but a kind of exultation was beginning to oust
his first frantic terror. The air rushed by, sweet and wonderful, the
rhythm of the hoofs changed and broke up and returned into itself again.
They were on turf now, a wide glade--the beech-trees a hundred yards
away on either side, and a succulent band of green starred with pink
blossom and shot with silver water here and there, meandered down the
middle. Far off was a glimpse of blue valley--far away. The exultation
grew. It was man's first taste of pace.

Then came a wide space dappled with flying fallow deer scattering this
way and that, and then a couple of jackals, mistaking Ugh-lomi for a
lion, came hurrying after him. And when they saw it was not a lion they
still came on out of curiosity. On galloped the horse, with his one
idea of escape, and after him the jackals, with