"There's a brook: must chance it," he muttered, and then, mechanically and with instinctive eye, he chose his place. He took a pull until he felt that Dignity was going well within himself, and then, fifty yards away, he touched him with his heels and let him out. The stream, swollen with the deluge of the previous day, had become a torrent of swirling, muddy water, and it was by no means narrow. But Dignity knew his business. Gathering his powerful quarters under him in the last stride, he took off exactly right and fairly hurled himself into space.
They landed with about an inch to spare.
"Good for you!" cried Tony, standing in his stirrups and looking back, as they breasted the slope beyond. From the top he had hoped to see the battery somewhere on the road, but he found that the wood obstructed his view, and he was still uncertain, therefore, as to whether he was in time or not.
"It's a race," he said, and sat down in his saddle to ride a finish.
But halfway across the next field Dignity put a foreleg into a blind and narrow drain and turned completely over.
Tony was thrown straight forward on to his head and stunned.
A quarter of an hour later he had recovered consciousness and was staring about him stupidly. The air was filled with the din of battle, but apparently the only living thing near him was Dignity, quietly grazing. He noticed, at first without understanding, that the horse moved on three legs only. His off foreleg was swinging. Tony got up and limped stiffly towards him. He bent down to feel the leg and found that it was broken.
Slowly, reluctantly, he pulled out his revolver and put in a cartridge. It was, perhaps, the hardest thing he had ever had to do. He drew Dignity's head down towards the ground, placed the muzzle against his forehead and fired.
The horse swayed for a fraction of a second then collapsed forward, lifeless, with a thud: and Tony felt as though his heart would break.