'You are in something of a fix, Sergeant!'
'How—what do you mean?' demanded Florian.
'That your horse is dying.'
'Dying!'
'Yes, of the regular horse-sickness.'
Florian in no small anxiety and excitement hurried out to the stable, in which two other nags were stalled, and there he saw the poor animal he had ridden lying among the straw in strong convulsions, labouring under that curse of South Africa, the horse-sickness, a most mysterious disorder, which had suddenly attacked it.
The animal had looked sullen and dull all morning, and in the stable had been assailed by the distemper and its usual symptoms, heaving flanks, disturbed breathing, glassy eyes, and a projecting tongue tightly clenched between the teeth. Then came the convulsions, and he was dead in half an hour, and Florian found that he would probably have to travel afoot for more than twenty miles before he could rejoin the column on the morrow.
'Where have you come from, Sergeant?' asked Josh Jarrett, when they returned to the public room.
'The fort at the Drakensberg, last.'
'Taking French leave, eh?' said Jarrett, with a portentous wink and a brightening eye.