The Horse and His Rider

by Sir Francis Bond Head

As, in utter darkness, he was endeavouring to get home, he came to several little imperceptible objects which he forced his horse to cross. Shortly afterwards the animal stopped at one which he seemed particularly afraid of.

The soldier, unwilling to halt between two opinions, but, on the contrary, determined to proceed as he thought straight towards his home, at almost full speed rode at the unknown impediment several times in vain, until the animal, surrendering his instinctive fears, and possibly knowledge, to the spurs that were propelling him, with a violent jump into the air cleared the little low hedge, for such it proved to be, bounding that awful precipice which, like a wall, connected the upper story or table-land of the island with the ocean which in solemn darkness reigned beneath it.

Colonel Moore states that during his passage on horseback through the air, almost every event of his life, large as well as small, at about the rate of the electric telegraph, which transmits its ideas one hundred and eighty thousand miles in a second, flashed across his mind as distinctly and as vividly as if they were recurring.

By a sort of clairvoyance, of which in medical annals there exist recorded several similar instances, he saw all that in his lifetime he had done or left undone, and was thinking, seriatim, of almost every friend and relative, when, in an instant, all these bright fiery thoughts on the past, present, or future tenses of his existence became extinguished by a concussion which, depriving him of his senses, left him with his legs in the sea and his body on the rocks, apparently dead.

While lying, corpse-like, in this lonely state, whose beneficent hand was it that all of a sudden dashed upon his face the cool, fresh soft water that recovered him? Whose voice was it that, almost at the same moment, explained to him, not only the accident which had befallen him, but the time that had elapsed since it occurred?

The hand that restored to him his senses was that which had already graciously placed his head in safety upon the rock above the ocean that would have drowned him, but in which his feet had been harmlessly floating. It was the hand that had just created the tropical shower which, as if administered to him by an angel, awakened him from his swoon.

It was the hand that, "in the beginning," when the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, had created that "lesser light to rule the night," which, just before he fell, he had observed rising from the horizon, but which now, shining above his head, upon four upturned glittering horse-shoes (all he could see of his mangled beast), made known to him, at a glance, that what had evidently befallen him, according to the illuminated clock in the heavens, must have occurred many hours ago.

With cool presence of mind, Colonel Moore, after making several experimental movements, ascertained that he was severely cut about the body and head; that his right ankle was dislocated, and that his back was benumbed or paralysed by the concussion of his fall. As soon, however, as the long wished-for sun rose, it shone upon his bare, bleeding head with such excruciating force, that, as a protection from its rays, he transferred his cotton neckerchief to his scalp and forehead, leaving sticking up above them the two ends, which, like the remainder, were stained with his red blood.

After remaining in extreme pain for several hours, to his great joy he saw a boat full of sable natives rowing towards the spot on which, in the head-dress just described, he was reclining. As soon as they came near to him, in a faint tone he hailed them. On hearing his voice, for a few moments they looked eagerly around in all directions, until they espied him, when, instantly, just as if they had seen and were pursued by an evil spirit, away they rowed at their utmost speed.

After a considerable interval another black man came clambering over the rocks, intent only on catching fish.