"My horse is tired," I answered, "and I am tired," and I showed him my broken whip. It was the third I had worn out over this obstinate brute's skin.
He called back one of the Zaptiehs and muttered to him unintelligibly in Turkish. The man crossed to the other side of the road, and he and the officer, one on each side, urged my horse on with continual blows behind. I dropped the reins almost unconsciously, and, all necessity for action of mind or body being removed, sat between them numb, petrified, and hardly conscious of my surroundings.
Pitter, patter came the rain on the saddles; click, clack went the horses' hoofs on the stones; clank went the captain's sword; whack came the men's whips behind; each noise was hardly uttered before it was rushed away in the driving wind.
Expectation of something better had made the present seem unbearable in the earlier part of the day; now that one no longer held any hope of alleviation, the general misery had not the same poignant effect; or was it that weariness from long hours in the saddle, and the pains consequent on exposure to cold and wet, had numbed one's senses? Jog, jog; one was being jogged on somewhere, one did not care where and one did not care for how long.
The men were saying something; the sound fell vaguely on my ears, but the meaning did not travel on to my brain. Then we stopped suddenly and the jerk threw me forward on the horse's neck. I felt two strong arms round me and was lifted bodily off the horse. "Brigands at last," I thought vaguely; "well, they are welcome to all my goods as long as they leave me to die comfortably in a heap."
"Geldik" (We have arrived). It was Hassan's voice; we were at the door of the caravanserai. He deposited me on the floor of a bare, black hole on one side of the courtyard and carefully arranged his wet cloak round me. I was conscious of a motionless heap in the dark corner opposite.
"X?" I muttered interrogatively.
"Hm," came from the corner.
"Hm," I responded.