Volume Two—Chapter Eighteen.
Trapped.
“When did he begin to go lame, Sam?”
“About two hours the other side of this, Inkos. I had to lead him all the way here.”
Claverton bends down again to examine the horse’s leg, and the light of the stable-lantern reveals an expression of the most intense and hopeless disgust upon his face. The stable is that belonging to the inn half-way along the King Williamstown road, the hour is shortly after midnight, and he has only just arrived. He has ridden untiringly, not sparing his mount, which indeed can hardly go a pace further; and now his other horse, which he has been counting on as a relay, is dead lame. It will be remembered that he had left Sam on the road, with orders to rest his horse and follow him at leisure. Shortly after Sam had seen his master’s back disappear over the rising ground, the animal began to go lame. Carefully the Natal boy examined his feet. There was no shoe loose, no stone in the frog—no. Poor Fleck had strained a sinew, and, by dint of much toil and considerable pain, the horse managed to reach the inn with his fetlock swelled to a ball.
“Sam, I must get on; and at once. Is there no one here who could sell me a horse?” The native thought a moment. “There are two men who came down from the camp to-day, Inkos, but their horses are used up. There’s a Dutchman going up there, he has an extra horse. That’s it; this one over here,” and, taking the lantern, Sam led the way to the other end of the stable. Claverton ran his eye over the animal designated. It was a large, young horse, well put together and in tolerable condition, but it rolled the whites of its eyes and laid its ears back in suggestive fashion.
“Looks skittish,” mused Claverton, as with a wild snort the animal backed and began “rucking” at its tether, then bounding suddenly forward, came with a fracas against the rickety crib, and stood snorting and trembling and rolling its eyes. “Half-broken evidently. What’s the fellow’s name, Sam?”
“Oppermann. Cornelius Oppermann, Inkos.”
“H’m. Getting light,” he mused, opening the door and looking skywards. “Sam, I’m going to buy that brute anyhow, and go straight on at once. Now you must wait till the young horse is rested, and take him back to Payne’s. Fleck can stay here. And, Sam,” he went on in a graver tone, “you are to wait there till I come back. Do everything they tell you; and if they send you to me, come at once and as quickly as you can. You see?”