In his strange mental condition even the change from Harkutt's feeble
candle to the outer darkness for a moment blinded Elijah Curtis, yet it
was part of that mental condition that he kept moving steadily forward
as in a trance or dream, though at first purposelessly. Then it occurred
to him that he was really looking for his horse, and that the animal was
not there. This for a moment confused and frightened him, first with the
supposition that he had not brought him at all, but that it was part of
his delusion; secondly, with the conviction that without his horse
he could neither proceed on the course suggested by Harkutt, nor take
another more vague one that was dimly in his mind. Yet in his hopeless
vacillation it seemed a relief that now neither was practicable, and
that he need do nothing. Perhaps it was a mysterious providence!

The explanation, however, was much simpler. The horse had been taken by
the luxurious and indolent Billings unknown to his companions. Overcome
at the dreadful prospect of walking home in that weather, this perfect
product of lethargic Sidon had artfully allowed Peters and Wingate to
precede him, and, cautiously unloosing the tethered animal, had safely
passed them in the darkness. When he gained his own inclosure he had
lazily dismounted, and, with a sharp cut on the mustang's haunches,
sent him galloping back to rejoin his master, with what result has been
already told by the unsuspecting Peters in the preceding chapter.

Yet no conception of this possibility entered 'Lige Curtis's alcoholized
consciousness, part of whose morbid phantasy it was to distort or
exaggerate all natural phenomena. He had a vague idea that he could not
go back to Harkutt's; already his visit seemed to have happened long,
long ago, and could not be repeated. He would walk on, enwrapped in
this uncompromising darkness which concealed everything, suggested