A TROOP OF WILD HORSES
It seemed so lonely to Martin when the vultures had gone up out of
sight in the sky, so silent and solitary on that immense level plain,
that he could not help wishing them back for the sake of company.
They were an amusing people when they were walking round him,
conversing together, and trying without coming too near to discover
whether he was dead or only sleeping.
All that day it was just as lonely, for though he went on as far as
he could before night, he was still on that great level plain of dry
yellow grass which appeared to have no end, and the blue hills
looked no nearer than when he had started in the morning. He was
hungry and thirsty that evening, and very cold too when he nestled
down on the ground with nothing to cover him but the little heap of
dry grass he had gathered for his bed.
It was better next day, for after walking two or three hours he came
to the end of that yellow plain to higher ground, where the earth
was sandy and barren, with a few scattered bushes growing on it--dark,
prickly bushes like butcher's broom. When he got to the highest part
of this barren ground he saw a green valley beyond, stretching away
as far as he could see on either hand. But it was nice to see a
green place again, and going down into the valley he managed to find
some sweet roots to stay his hunger and thirst; then, after a rest,
he went on again, and when he got to the top of the high ground
beyond the valley, he saw another valley before him, just like the
one he had left behind. Again he rested in that green place, and
then slowly went up the high land beyond, where it was barren and
sandy with the dark stiff prickly bushes growing here and there, and
when he got to the top he looked down, and behold! there was yet
another green valley stretching away to the right and left as far as
he could see.
Would they never end--these high barren ridges and the long green
valleys between!
When he toiled slowly up out of this last green resting-place it was
growing late in the day, and he was very tired. Then he came to the
top of another ridge like the others, only higher and more barren,
and when he could see the country beyond, lo! another valley,
greener and broader than those he had left behind, and a river
flowing in it, looking like a band of silver lying along the green
earth--a river too broad for him to cross, stretching away north and
south as far as he could see. How then should he ever be able to get
to the hills, still far, far away beyond that water?
Martin stared at the scene before him for some time; then, feeling
very tired and weak, he sat down on the sandy ground beside a scanty
dark bush. Tears came to his eyes: he felt them running down his
cheeks; and all at once he remembered how long before when his
wandering began, he had dropped a tear, and a small dusty beetle had
refreshed himself by drinking it. He bent down and let a tear drop,
and watched it as it sank into the ground, but no small beetle came
out to drink it, and he felt more lonely and miserable than ever. He
began to think of all the queer creatures and people he had met in
the desert, and to wish for them. Some of them had not been very
kind to him, but he did not remember that now, it was so sad to be
quite alone in the world without even a small beetle to visit him. He
remembered the beautiful people of the Mirage and the black people
of the sky; and the ostrich, and old Jacob, and the savages, and the
serpent, and the black weasel in the forest. He stood up and stared
all round to see if anything was coming, but he could see nothing
and hear nothing.
By-and-by, in that deep silence, there was a sound; it seemed to
come from a great distance, it was so faint. Then it grew louder and
nearer; and far away he saw a little cloud of dust, and then, even
through the dust, dark forms coming swiftly towards him. The sound
he heard was like a long halloo, a cry like the cry of a man, but
wild and shrill, like a bird's cry; and whenever that cry was uttered,
it was followed by a strange confused noise as of the neighing of
many horses. They were, in truth, horses that were coming swiftly
towards him--a herd of sixty or seventy wild horses. He could see
and hear them only too plainly now, looking very terrible in their
strength and speed, and the flowing black manes that covered them
like a black cloud, as they came thundering on, intending perhaps to
sweep over him and trample him to death with their iron-hard hoofs.
All at once, when they were within fifty yards of Martin, the long,
shrill, wild cry went up again, and the horses swerved to one side,
and went sweeping round him in a wide circle. Then, as they galloped
by, he caught sight of the strangest-looking being he had ever seen,
a man, on the back of one of the horses; naked and hairy, he looked
like a baboon as he crouched, doubled up, gripping the shoulders and
neck of the horse with his knees, clinging with his hands to the mane,
and craning his neck like a flying bird. It was this strange rider
who had uttered the long piercing man-and-bird-like cries; and now
changing his voice to a whinnying sound the horses came to a stop,
and gathering together in a crowd they stood tossing their manes and
staring at Martin with their wild, startled eyes.
In another moment the wild rider came bounding out from among them,
and moving now erect, now on all fours, came sideling up to Martin,
flinging his arms and legs about, wagging his head, grimacing and
uttering whinnying and other curious noises. Never had Martin looked
upon so strange a man! He was long and lean so that you could have
counted his ribs, and he was stark naked, except for the hair of his
head and face, which half covered him. His skin was of a yellowish
brown colour, and the hair the colour of old dead grass; and it was
coarse and tangled, falling over his shoulders and back and covering
his forehead like a thatch, his big brown nose standing out beneath
it like a beak. The face was covered with the beard which was
tangled too, and grew down to his waist, After staring at Martin for
some time with his big, yellow, goat-like eyes, he pranced up to him
and began to sniff round him, then touched him with his nose on his
face, arms, and shoulders.
[Illustration: ]
"Who are you?" said Martin in astonishment.
For only answer the other squealed and whinnied, grimacing and
kicking his legs up at the same time. Then the horses advanced to
them, and gathering round in a close crowd began touching Martin with
their noses. He liked it--the softness of their sensitive skins,
which were like velvet, and putting up his hands he began to stroke
their noses. Then one by one, after smelling him, and being touched
by his hand, they turned away, and going down into the valley were
soon scattered about, most of them grazing, some rolling, others
lying stretched out on the grass as if to sleep; while the young
foals in the troop, leaving their dams, began playing about and
challenging one another to run a race.
Martin, following and watching them, almost wished that he too could
go on four legs to join them in their games. He trusted those wild
horses, but he was still puzzled by that strange man, who had also
left him now and was going quietly round on all fours, smelling at
the grass. By-and-by he found something to his liking in a small
patch of tender green clover, which he began nosing and tearing it
up with his teeth, then turning his head round he stared back at
Martin, his jaws working vigorously all the time, the stems and
leaves of the clover he was eating sticking out from his mouth and
hanging about his beard. All at once he jumped up, and flying back
at Martin, snatched him up from the ground, carried him to the
clover patch, and set him upon it, face down, on all fours; then
when Martin sat up he grasped him by the head and forced it down
until his nose was on the grass so as to make him smell it and know
that it was good. But smell it he would not, and finally the other
seized him roughly again and, opening his mouth, forced a bunch of
grass into it.
[Illustration: ]
"It's grass, and I sha'n't eat it!" screamed Martin, crying with
anger at being so treated, and spewing the green stuff out of his
mouth.
Then the man released him, and, withdrawing a space of two or three
yards, sat down on his haunches, and, planting his bony elbows on
his knees, thrust his great brown fingers in his tangled hair, and
stared at Martin with his big yellow goat's eyes for a long time.
Suddenly a wild excited look came into his eyes, and, leaping up
with a shrill cry, which caused all the horses to look round at him,
he once more snatched Martin up, and holding him firmly gripped to
his ribby side by his arm, bounded off to where a mare was standing
giving suck to her young foal. With a vigorous kick he sent the foal
away, and forced Martin to take his place, and, to make it easier
for him, pressed the teat into his mouth. Martin was not accustomed
to feed in that way, and he not only refused to suck, but continued
to cry with indignation at such treatment, and to struggle with all
his little might to free himself. His striving was all in vain; and
by-and-by the man, seeing that he would not suck, had a fresh idea,
and, gripping Martin more firmly than ever, with one hand forced and
held his mouth open, and with the other drew a stream of milk into it.
After choking and spluttering and crying more than ever for a while,
Martin began to grow quiet, and to swallow the milk with some
satisfaction, for he was very hungry and thirsty, and it tasted very
good. By-and-by, when no more milk could be drawn from the teats, he
was taken to a second mare, from which the foal was kicked away with
as little ceremony as the first one, and then he had as much more
milk as he wanted, and began to like being fed in this amusing way.
Of what happened after that Martin did not know much, except that
the man seemed very happy after feeding him. He set Martin on the
back of a horse, then jumped and danced round him, making funny
chuckling noises, after which he rolled horse-like on the grass, his
arms and legs up in the air, and finally, pulling Martin down, he
made him roll too.
But the little fellow was too tired to keep his eyes any longer open,
and when he next opened them it was morning, and he found himself
lying wedged in between a mare and her young foal lying side by side
close together. There too was the wild man, coiled up like a
sleeping dog, his head pillowed on the foal's neck, and the hair of
his great shaggy beard thrown like a blanket over Martin.
He very soon grew accustomed to the new strange manner of life, and
even liked it. Those big, noble-looking wild horses, with their
shining coats, brown and bay and black and sorrel and chestnut, and
their black manes and tails that swept the grass when they moved,
were so friendly to him that he could not help loving them. As he
went about among them when they grazed, every horse he approached
would raise his head and touch his face and arms with his nose.
"O you dear horse!" Martin would exclaim, rubbing the warm,
velvet-soft, sensitive nose with his hand.
He soon discovered that they were just as fond of play as he was,
and that he too was to take part in their games. Having fed as long
as they wanted that morning, they all at once began to gather
together, coming at a gallop, neighing shrilly; then the wild man,
catching Martin up, leaped upon the back of one of the horses, and
away went the whole troop at a furious pace to the great open dry
plain, where Martin had met with them on the previous day. Now it
was very terrifying for him at first to be in the midst of that
flying crowd, as the animals went tearing over the plain, which
seemed to shake beneath their thundering hoofs, while their human
leader cheered them on with his shrill, repeated cries. But in a
little while he too caught the excitement, and, losing all his fear,
was as wildly happy as the others, crying out at the top of his
voice in imitation of the wild man.
After an hour's run they returned to the valley, and then Martin,
without being compelled to do so, rolled about on the grass, and
went after the young foals when they came out to challenge one
another to a game. He tried to do as they did, prancing and throwing
up his heels and snorting, but when they ran from him they soon left
him hopelessly behind. Meanwhile the wild man kept watch over him,
feeding him with mare's milk, and inviting him from time to time to
smell and taste the tender grass. Best of all was, when they went
for another run in the evening, and when Martin was no longer held
with a tight grip against the man's side, but was taught or allowed
to hold on, clinging with his legs to the man's body and clasping
him round the neck with his arms, his fingers tightly holding on to
the great shaggy beard.
Three days passed in this way, and if his time had been much longer
with the wild horses he would have become one of the troop, and
would perhaps have eaten grass too, and forgotten his human speech,
or that he was a little boy born to a very different kind of life.
But it was not to be, and in the end he was separated from the troop
by accident.
At the end of the third day, when the sun was setting, and all the
horses were scattered about in the valley, quietly grazing,
something disturbed them. It might have been a sight or sound of
some feared object, or perhaps the wind had brought the smell of
their enemies and hunters from a great distance to their nostrils.
Suddenly they were all in a wild commotion, galloping from all sides
toward their leader, and he, picking Martin up, was quickly on a
horse, and off they went full speed, but not towards the plain where
they were accustomed to go for their runs. Now they fled in the
opposite direction down to the river: into it they went, into that
wide, deep, dangerous current, leaping from the bank, each horse, as
he fell into the water with a tremendous splash, disappearing from
sight; but in another moment the head and upper part of the neck was
seen to rise above the surface, until the whole lot were in, and
appeared to Martin like a troop of horses' heads swimming without
bodies over the river. He, clinging to the neck and beard of the
wild man, had the upper half of his body out of the cold, rushing
water, and in this way they all got safely across and up the
opposite bank. No sooner were they out, than, without even pausing
to shake the water from their skins, they set off at full speed
across the valley towards the distant hills. Now on this side, at a
distance of a mile or so from the river, there were vast reed-beds
standing on low land, dried to a hard crust by the summer heat, and
right into the reeds the horses rushed and struggled to force their
way through. The reeds were dead and dry, so tall that they rose
high above the horses' heads, and growing so close together that it
was hard to struggle through them. Then when they were in the midst
of this difficult place, the dry crust that covered the low ground
began to yield to the heavy hoofs, and the horses, sinking to their
knees, were thrown down and plunged about in the most desperate way,
and in the midst of this confusion Martin was struck and thrown from
his place, falling amongst the reeds. Luckily he was not trampled
upon, but he was left behind, and then what a dreadful situation was
his, when the whole troop had at last succeeded in fighting their
way through, and had gone away leaving him in that dark, solitary
place! He listened until the sound of heavy hoofs and the long cries
of the man had died away in the distance; then the silence and
darkness terrified him, and he struggled to get out, but the reeds
grew so close together that before he had pushed a dozen yards
through them he sank down, unable to do more.
The air was hot and close and still down there on the ground, but by
leaning his head back, and staring straight up he could see the pale
night sky sprinkled with stars in the openings between the dry
leaves and spikes of the reeds. Poor Martin could do nothing but
gaze up at the little he could see of the sky in that close, black
place, until his neck ached with the strain; but at last, to make
him hope, he heard a sound--the now familiar long shrill cry of the
wild man. Then, as it came nearer, the sound of tramping hoofs and
neighing of the horses was heard, and the cries and hoof-beats grew
louder and then fainter in turns, and sounded now on this side, now
on that, and he knew that they were looking for him. "I'm here, I'm
here," he cried; "oh, dear horses, come and take me away!" But they
could not hear him, and at last the sound of their neighing and the
wild long cries died away altogether, and Martin was left alone in
that black silent place.