Eh, Raro ?" The good steed, as if he understood what was said to him, pawed the ground and arched his head.

The sworn umpires placed the youths in line again.

Most of them, however, seeing the uselessness of competing with these two horsemen, fell out of the line and mingled among the spectators, so that scarce six others remained on the ground with the two rival heroes.

All the more interesting, therefore, the contest; for there will be nothing to distract the attention of the onlookers.
Before engaging in the contest for the third time, the stranger-youth dismounted from his horse, and cutting a supple willow sapling from a tree in the cemetery, stripped it of its leaves, and thrusting it into his whip-handle, mounted his horse again.

Hitherto he had not once struck his steed.
But now, when the noble animal heard the sharp hiss of the thin willow wand, it began to rear.