a good cause. The black, who had been driven nearly crazy by his blinkers, trusted to his weight. at Benami knew how to apply how to keep his temper. They and his tempe his weight a M as a cloud of dust. The black le, all the breath knocked out Rabbit was a hundred yards up the ball, and Benami was sitting siid nearly ten yards on his tail, i his revenge, and sat cracking his black pony rose. what you get for interfering. Do you ore?" said Benami, and he plunged game. Nothing was done that quarter, F Ullah would not gallop, though anari beat him whenever he could spare Cond The fall of the black pony had ims companions tremendously, and so the is could not profit by Faiz-Ullah's bad . The Maltese Cat said when "time" was ind the four came back blowing and dripF.Ulah ought to have been kicked all It he did not behave better next iese Cat promised to pull out his the roots and — eat it. Arab .. The was no time to talk, for the third four were ordered out. The third quarter of a game is generally the ТА АГАТДАМ АНТ JAM hottest, for each side thinks that the others must be pumped; and most of the winning play in a game is made about that time. Lutyens took over The Maltese Cat with a pat and a hug, for Lutyens valued him more than anything else in the world; Powell had Shikast, a little grey rat with no pedigree and no manners outside polo; Macnamara mounted Bamboo, the largest of the team; and Hughes Who's Who, alias The Animal. He was supposed to have Australian blood in his veins, but he looked like a clothes-horse, and you could whack his legs with an iron crowbar without hurting him. They went out to meet the very flower of the Archangels' team; and when Who's Who saw their elegantly booted legs and their beautiful satin skins, he grinned a grin through his light, well-worn bridle. "My word!" said Who's Who "We must give 'em a little football. These gentlemen need a rubbing down." "No biting," said The Maltese Cat, warningly; for once or twice in his career Who's Who had been known to forget himself in that way. "Who said anything about biting? I'm not playing tiddly-winks. I'm playing the game." The Archangels came down like a wolf on the fold, for they were tired of football, and they wanted polo. They got it more and more. Just after the game began, Lutyens hit a ball that was coming towards him rapidly, and it rolled in the air, as a ball sometimes will, with the whirl of a frightened partridge. Shikast heard, but could not see it for the minute, though he looked everywhere and up into the air as The Maltese Cat had taught him. When he saw it ahead and overhead he went forward with Powell as fast as he could put foot to ground. It was then that Powell, a quiet and level-headed man, as a rule, became inspired, and played a stroke that sometimes comes off successfully after long practice. He took his stick in both hands, and, standing up in his stirrups, swiped at the ball in the air, Munipore fashion. There was one second of paralysed astonishment, and then all four sides of the ground went up in a yell of applause and delight as the ball flew true (you could see the amazed Archangels ducking in their saddles to dodge the line of flight, and looking at it with open mouths), and the regimental pipes of the Skidars squealed from the railings as long as the pipers had breath. Shikast heard the stroke; but he heard the head of the stick fly off at the same time. Nine hundred and ninety-nine ponies out of a thousand would have gone tearing on after the ball with a useless player pulling at their heads; but Powell knew him, and he knew Powell; and the instant he felt Powell's right leg shift a trifle on the saddle |