but he saw only his horse's ears and neck, the ground flying under him, and Gladiator's flanks, and white feet beating the ground in cadence, and always maintaining the same distance between them. Gladiator flew at the hurdle, gave a whisk of his well-cropped tail, and, without having touched the hurdle, vanished from Vronsky's eyes.
"Bravo!" cried a voice.
At the same instant the planks of the hurdle flashed before his eyes. Without the least change in her motion, the horse rose under him. The planks creaked and just behind him there was the sound of a thump. Frou Frou, excited by the sight of Gladiator, had leaped too soon, and had struck the hurdle with one of her hind feet, but her gait was unchanged; and Vronsky, his face splashed with mud, saw that he was still at the same distance from Gladiator, he saw once more Gladiator's crupper, his short tail, and his swiftly moving white feet.
At the very instant that Vronsky decided that he ought now to get ahead of Makhotin, Frou Frou herself comprehending his thought, and needing no stimulus, sensibly increased her speed, and gained on Makhotin by trying to take the inside track next the rope. But Makhotin did not yield this advantage. Vronsky was wondering if they could not pass on the outside, when Frou Frou, as if divining his thought, changed of her own accord and took this direction. Her shoulder, darkened with sweat, came up even with Gladiator's flank, and for several seconds they flew almost side by side; but Vronsky, before the obstacle to which they were now coming, in order not to take the outside of the great circle, began to ply his reins, and, just on the declivity, he managed to get the lead. As he drew by Makhotin he saw his mud-stained face; it even seemed to him that he smiled. Vronsky had passed Makhotin, but he was conscious that he was just behind, he was still there, within a step; and Vronsky could hear the regular rhythm of Gladiator's feet, and his hurried, but far from winded, breathing.
The next two obstacles, the ditch and the hurdle, were
