Robbery under Arms; a story of life and adventure in the bush and in the Australian goldfields by Rolf Boldrewood
page 66 of 678 (09%)
page 66 of 678 (09%)
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It was a bad day I ever saw either, and many a man had cause to say the same.
The horse held up his head and snorted as he came abreast of us, and we showed out. He was one of the grandest animals I'd ever seen, and I afterwards found he was better than he looked. He came stepping down that beastly rocky goat-track, he, a clean thoroughbred that ought never to have trod upon anything rougher than a rolled training track, or the sound bush turf. And here he was with a heavy weight on his back -- a half-dead, fainting man, that couldn't hold the reins -- and him walking down as steady as an old mountain bull or a wallaroo on the side of a creek bank. I hadn't much time to look him over. I was too much taken up with the rider, who was lying forward on his chest across a coat rolled round and strapped in front of the saddle, and his arms round the horse's neck. He was as pale as a ghost. His eyes -- great dark ones they were, too -- were staring out of his head. I thought he was dead, and called out to father and Jim that he was. They ran up, and we lifted him off after undoing some straps and a rope. He was tied on (that was what the half-caste was waiting for at the top of the gully). When we laid him down his head fell back, and he looked as much like a corpse as if he had been dead a day. Then we saw he had been wounded. There was blood on his shirt, and the upper part of his arm was bandaged. `It's too late, father,' said I; `he's a dead man. What pluck he must have had to ride down there!' |
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