“Even if he wins his bet the triumph will have cost him something,” I thought, as I looked at his ugly face, and saw how sick he looked as Storm Drum came along, the gap between him and the other horse rather increasing than decreasing.
“It’s a race! Marmion wins!” shouted some one, as for a second the favourite looked dangerous.
“Not a bit of it; Storm Drum has the lot of ’em settled,” said Langford as he put down his glasses; “he is on his good behaviour for once, and he has made fools of us all.”
As Storm Drum came past the post, an easy winner, men began to remember how they had always said he was the best bred horse in South Africa, and better class than anything else out there, and generally to be wise after the event.
Muzada was not able to take his losses so philosophically. He got into a rage, swearing that he had been robbed, that Marmion had been got at, and that the whole thing was a swindle. Nobody sympathised with him very much, and even those who had lost their money found some consolation in his disappointment.
“So, you see, I was not so rash as you thought; but then I happened to know something about the horse that no one else knew,” said Jack Harman to me that evening. “When Tom Markham owned him we found out that he could not be depended upon, and after he had let us in once or twice we determined to get rid of him. One day, however, at Cradock races, a man came up to us and said he thought he could tell us something about the horse. He had been employed in a stable at home, where Blue Peter, Storm Drum’s sire, was trained. Blue Peter was just such another customer as his son, till somehow it was found out that he had a weakness for strong drink. His favourite tipple was whiskey, Irish whiskey, the older and better it was the more he liked it—it seemed to put heart in him, and after he took to drink he won race after race for them, and our informant suggested that the taste might be inherited. Well, we determined to give his idea a trial, and before Storm Drum started for the race he won in Natal, he had his half bottle of whiskey. It seemed to agree with him, for he went right away and won. A few weeks after that Markham went to grief, and had to bolt to South America, and Storm Drum was seized by his creditors. One or two men owned him before he came to Pat Brady, but they all burnt their fingers with him; for no one knew of his family failing, and as a Good Templar he didn’t turn out a success, but I always remembered what he could do if he liked, and when Muzada interfered with me I thought how I could sell him if I put Storm Drum on his good behaviour. Well, it came off all right, but I didn’t enjoy that ride; every moment I was afraid that the brute would stop dead, but thanks to Pat’s whiskey, he had won the race before he remembered himself. It’s the last bet I shall make in this country. I shall go back and look after the farm, and the missis, and the kids, now that I am out of Muzada’s clutches again.”
Jack Harman was as good as his word, and there is no steadier husband or better specimen of the colonial farmer than the ex-hussar. He lives happily at Laurie’s Kloof, and prosperous and well to do.