lunteered in asking so direct a question. But Barker had taken no such
lead, and never referred to Claudius in all the ramblings of his polite
conversation.

He was in the midst of a description of Mrs. Orlando Van Sueindell's
last dinner-party, which he had unfortunately missed, when his browns,
less peaceably disposed than most of the lazy bean-fed cattle one sees
on the Newport avenue, took it into their heads that it would be a
joyous thing to canter down a steep place into the sea. The road turned,
with a sudden dip, across a little neck of land separating the bay from
the harbour, and the descent was, for a few yards, very abrupt. At this
point, then, the intelligent animals conceived the ingenious scheme of
bolting, with that eccentricity of device which seems to characterise
overfed carriage-horses. In an instant they were off, and it was clear
there would be no stopping them--from a trot to a break, from
a canter to a gallop, from a gallop to a tearing, breakneck,
leave-your-bones-behind-you race, all in a moment, down to the sea.

Barker was not afraid, and he did what he could. He was not a strong
man, and he knew himself no match for the two horses, but he hoped by a
sudden effort, repeated once or twice, to scare the runaways into a
standstill, as is sometimes possible. Acting immediately on his
determination, as he always did, he wound one hand in each rein, and
half rising from his high seat, jerked with all his might. Margaret held
her breath.

But alas for the rarity of strength in saddlers' work! The off-rein
snapped away like a thread just where the buckle leads half of it over
to the near horse, and the strain on the right hand being thus suddenly
removed, the horses' heads were jerked violently to the left, and they
became wholly unmanageable. Barker was silent, and instantly dropped the
unbroken rein. As for Margaret, she sat quite still, holding to the low
rail-back of her seat, and preparing for a jump. They were by this time
nearly at the bottom of the descent, and rapidly approaching a corner
where a great heap of rocks made the prospect hideous. To haul the
horses over to the left would have been destruction, as the ground fell
away on that side to a considerable depth down to the rocks below. Then
Barker did a brave thing.

"If I miss him, jump off to the right," he cried; and in a moment,
before Margaret could answer or prevent him, he had got over the
dashboard, and was in mid-air, a st