The stag of Texas, reclining in midnight lair, is startled from his
slumbers by the hoofstroke of a horse.
He does not forsake his covert, nor yet rise to his feet. His domain is
shared by the wild steeds of the savannah, given to nocturnal straying.
He only uprears his head; and, with antlers o'ertopping the tall grass,
listens for a repetition of the sound.
Again is the hoofstroke heard, but with altered intonation. There is a
ring of metal--the clinking of steel against stone.
The sound, significant to the ear of the stag, causes a quick change in
his air and attitude. Springing clear of his couch, and bounding a
score of yards across the prairie, he pauses to look back upon the
disturber of his dreams.
In the clear moonlight of a southern sky, he recognises the most
ruthless of his enemies--man. One is approaching upon horseback.
Yielding to instinctive dread, he is about to resume his flight: when
something in the appearance of the horseman--some unnatural seeming--
holds him transfixed to the spot.
With haunches in quivering contact with the sward, and frontlet faced to
the rear, he continues to gaze--his large brown eyes straining upon the
intruder in a mingled expression of fear and bewilderment.
What has challenged the stag to such protracted scrutiny?
The horse is perfect in all its parts--a splendid steed, saddled,
bridled, and otherwise completely caparisoned. In it there appears
nothing amiss--nothing to produce either wonder or alarm. But the man--
the rider? Ah! About him there _is_ something to cause both--something
weird--something _wanting_!
By heavens! it is the head!
Even the unreasoning animal can perceive this; and, after gazing a
moment with wildered eyes--wondering what abnormal monster thus mocks
its cervine intelligence--terror-stricken it continues its retreat; nor
again pauses, till it has plunged through the waters of the Leona, and
placed the current of the stream between itself and the ghastly
intruder.
Heedless of the affrighted deer--either of its presence, or precipitate
flight--the Headless Horseman rides on.
He, too, is going in the direction of the river. Unlike the stag, he
does not seem pressed for time; but advances in a slow, tranquil pace:
so silent as to seem ceremonious.
Apparently absorbed in solemn thought, he gives free rein to his steed:
permitting the animal, at intervals, to snatch a mouthful of the herbage
growing by the way. Nor does he, by voice or gesture, urge it
impatiently onward, when the howl-bark of the prairie-wolf causes it to
fling its head on high, and stand snorting in its tracks.
He appears to be under the influence of some all-absorbing emotion, from
which no common incident can awake him. There is no speech--not a
whisper--to betray its nature. The startled stag, his own horse, the
wolf, and the midnight moon, are the sole witnesses of his silent
abstraction.
His shoulders shrouded under a _serape_, one edge of which, flirted up
by the wind, displays a portion of his figure: his limbs encased in
"water-guards" of jaguar-skin: thus sufficiently sheltered against the
dews of the night, or the showers of a tropical sky, he rides on--silent
as the stars shining above, unconcerned as the cicada that chirrups in
the grass beneath, or the prairie breeze playing with the drapery of his
dress.
Something at length appears to rouse from his reverie, and stimulate him
to greater speed--his steed, at the same time. The latter, tossing up
its head, gives utterance to a joyous neigh; and, with outstretched
neck, and spread nostrils, advances in a gait gradually increasing to a
canter. The proximity of the river explains the altered pace.
The horse halts not again, till the crystal current is surging against
his flanks, and the legs of his rider are submerged knee-deep under the
surface.
The animal eagerly assuages its thirst; crosses to the opposite side;
and, with vigorous stride, ascends the sloping bank.
Upon the crest occurs a pause: as if the rider tarried till his steed
should shake the water from its flanks. There is a rattling of
saddle-flaps, and stirrup-leathers, resembling thunder, amidst a cloud
of vapour, white as the spray of a cataract.
Out of this self-constituted _nimbus_, the Headless Horseman emerges;
and moves onward, as before.
Apparently pricked by the spur, and guided by the rein, of his rider,
the horse no longer strays from the track; but steps briskly forward, as
if upon a path already trodden.
A treeless savannah stretches before--selvedged by the sky. Outlined
against the azure is seen the imperfect centaurean shape gradually
dissolving in the distance, till it becomes lost to view, under the
mystic gloaming of the moonlight!