For already one of the umpires had tossed the ball into the middle of the ground.

The game had begun.
The native team was matched against a regiment of Dragoons, and from the beginning it was plain that the four English players were the stronger team.

But on the other side there was one who in point of skill outstripped them all.

He was stationed on the outside of the field farthest away from Violet Oliver.

He was a young man, almost a boy, she judged; he was beautifully mounted, and he sat his pony as though he and it were one.