“There was probably some hitch at the station,” said Harold; “and bullocks travel very slowly indeed. But the cart will be in before morning; we shall arrive some hours before it.”
Harold was calculating without his host, or rather without his horses. A brief pause was made half-way to Talwandi for the driver to quench his own thirst and that of his horses, and to indulge himself with a pull at his hookah. The pause was unfortunate, for it gave one of the animals time to consider that he had not been taken out of harness and relieved by another horse, as he had a right to expect. The creature resolutely determined—and some Indian horses have resolute wills—not to go a single step further. The driver had resumed his seat on the box, and cracked his whip as a sign to move on; but in vain was whip-cracking or urging or beating. The horse reared and plunged and kicked, and turned almost right round, after the fashion of nat-kat (naughty) horses in India.
“O Harold! Harold! what is that dreadful creature doing?” exclaimed Alicia, in terror grasping her husband’s arm.
“It is only that we have a nat-kat in the shafts,” replied Harold. “There will be a regular battle between the will of man and horse, as shown in the picture which we were looking at in the clever book ‘Curry and Rice.’”
“Oh, this is terrible!” cried Alicia, as the horse’s iron hoofs beat a tattoo against the gári. “There—oh, look!—he has turned round—his head will be in the carriage; he’s as fierce as a tiger! What a frightful noise he makes—between a neigh and a scream!”
“I will get out and help the driver,” said Harold, with his hand on the sliding panel of the gári, which was but half pushed back.
“Oh no; the horse will kick you or bite you—nat-kat horses bite!” cried Alicia, almost frantic with terror. Stronger nerves than hers have been tried by a nat-kat brute.
Neither could the driver master the furious beast, nor Harold soothe the terrified lady. A quarter of an hour passed—a half-hour; mindless of rein, only irritated by blows, kicking, snorting, backing, now to the right side of the road, then to the left, doing his utmost to overturn the heavy gári, the nat-kat would go any way but forward.
“O Harold, I can bear this no longer; help me out!” gasped Alicia, looking so pale that her husband feared that she was going to faint. Catching his opportunity, Harold sprang from the gári, lifted his wife down on the side nearest the quieter horse, and placed the trembling lady at a safe distance from the heels of the plunging nat-kat.
“Harold, I feel so nervous; I will not attempt to get into that carriage again,” faltered Alicia Hartley.