"Get up, you little lazy devil, get up," cried the brute with the whip, and still his blows fell like raindrops, first on the mare's flanks, then on its upturned belly, then on its head, its mouth, and last of all on its eyes.
But the poor creature's load held it down, and, struggle as it would, it could not rise. The gang of prisoners on the hillside who had just before burdened the ponies and sent them off, heard this lashing and swearing, and stopped their work to look down. But they thought more of the carrier than of the fallen pony, and laughed aloud at his vain efforts to bring it to its feet.
"Send him a hand up, Jonas," shouted one of the fellows.
"Pick him up in your arms, old boy," shouted another, and at every silly sally they all roared together.
The jeering incensed the carrier, and he brought down his whip the fiercer and quicker at every fresh blow, until the whizzing of the lash sang in the air, and the hills echoed with the thuds on the pony's body. Then the little creature made one final, frantic effort, and plunging with its utmost strength it had half risen to its forelegs when one of the sacks slid from its place and got under its hind legs, whereupon the canvas gave way, the sulphur fell out, and the poor little brute slipped afresh and fell again, flat, full length, and with awful force and weight, dashing its head against a stone. At sight of this misadventure the prisoners above laughed once more, and the carrier leaped from his own saddle and kicked the fallen piebald in the mouth.
Now this had occurred within the space of a stone's-throw from the house which Red Jason lived in and cleaned, and hearing the commotion as he worked within he had come out to learn the cause of it. Seeing everything in one quick glance, he pushed along as fast as he could for the leg-fetters that bound him, and came upon the carrier as he was stamping the life out of the pony with kicks on its palpitating sides. At the next moment he had laid the fellow on his back, and then, stepping up to the piebald, he put his arms about it to lift it to its feet. Meantime the prisoners above had stopped their laughing, and were looking on with eyes of wonder at Jason's mighty strength.
"God! Is it possible he is trying to lift a horse to its feet?" cried one.
"What? and three sacks of sulphur as well?" cried another.
"Never," cried a third; and all held their breath.
Jason did not stop to remove the sacks. He wound his great arms first under the little beast's neck, and raised it to its forefeet, and then squaring his broad flanks above his legs that held the ground like the hoofs of an ox, he made one silent, slow, tremendous upward movement, and in an instant the piebald was on its feet, affrighted, trembling, with startled eyeballs and panting nostrils, but secure and safe, and with its load squared and righted on [her] back.