The
Shagird Might, Indeed, Have Saved The Fall Had He Kept His Head
Instead Of Losing It.
All he could do was, with a loud voice and
outstretched arms, to invoke the assistance of "Allah!" We were not
long in suspense.
Slowly, inch by inch, the poor brute lost his hold
of the slippery ground, and disappeared, with a shrill neigh of
terror, from sight. For two or three seconds we heard him striking
here and there against a jutting rock or shrub, till, with a final
thud, he landed on a small plateau of deep snow-drifts at least
three hundred feet below. Here he lay motionless and apparently
dead, while we could see through our glasses a thin stream of
crimson flow from under him, gradually staining the white snow
around.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE KHADZAN]
A cat is popularly supposed to have nine lives. After my experience
of the Persian post-horse, I shall never believe that that rough and
ill-shaped but useful animal has less than a dozen. The fall I
have described would assuredly have killed a horse of any other
nationality, if I may use the word. It seemed, on the contrary, to
have a tonic and exhilarating effect on this Patchinar pony. Before we
could reach him (a work of considerable difficulty and some risk) he
had risen to his feet, given himself a good shake, and was nibbling
away at a bit of gorse that peeped through the snow on which he had
fallen.
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