“Ah! my beautiful Crusader! to think I must leave you behind! And to be ridden by a redskin—a cruel savage who will take no care of you. Oh! it is hard—hard!”
Crusader appears to comprehend what is said, for his answer is something like a moan. It may be that he interprets the melancholy expression on his master’s face—that master who has been so kind to him.
“A last farewell, brave fellow! Be it a kiss,” says the youth, bringing his lips in contact with those of the horse. Then pulling off the headstall, with its attached trail-rope, and letting them drop to the ground, he again speaks the sad word “farewell,” and, turning back on his beloved steed, walks hurriedly and determinedly away, as though fearing resolution might fail him.
Soon he commences climbing up the gorge; all the others who have gone before now nearly out of it. But ere he has ascended ten steps, he hears that behind which causes him to stop and look back. Not in alarm: he knows it to be the neigh of his own horse, accompanied by the stroke of his hoofs in quick repetition—Crusader coming on in a gallop for the gorge. In another instant he is by its bottom, on hind legs, rearing up against the rocky steep, as if determined to scale it.
In vain: after an effort he drops back on all fours. But to rear up and try again and again, all the while giving utterance to wild, agonised neighs—very screams.
To Henry Tresillian the sight is saddening, the sound torture, stirring his heart to its deepest depths. To escape the seeing—though he cannot so soon the hearing—he once more turns his back upon the horse, and hastens on upward. But when halfway to the head, he cannot resist taking another downward look. Which shows him Crusader yet by the bottom of the gorge, but now standing still on all fours, as if resigned to the inevitable. Not silent, however; instead, at short intervals, giving utterance to that neigh of melancholy cadence, alike proclaiming discomfiture and despair.