the jackals howled around the open doors of the huts; and across vast fields of late crops, over hills thickly grown with trees, past the broad bend of the Sutlej river, and over the plateau toward Sultanpoor, the cultivation growing scantier and the villages rarer all the while, as the vast masses of the Himalayas defined themselves more and more distinctly in the moonlight.  Horses of all kinds under me, lean and fat, short and high, roman-nosed and goose-necked, broken and unbroken; away and away, shifting saddle and bridle and saddle-bag as I left each tired mount behind me.  Once I passed a stream, and pulling off my boots to cool my feet, the temptation way too strong, so I hastily threw off my clothes and plunged in and had a short refreshing bath.  Then on, with, the galloping even triplet of the house’s hoofs beneath me, as they came down in quick succession, as if the earth were a muffled drum and we were beating an untiring rataplan on her breast.

I must have ridden a hundred and thirty miles before dawn, and the pace was beginning to tell, even on my strong frame.  True, to a man used to the saddle, the effort of riding is reduced to a minimum when every hour or two gives him a fresh horse.  There is then no heed for the welfare of the animal necessary; he has but his seven or eight miles to gallop, and then his work is done; there are none of those thousand little cares and sympathetic shiftings and adjustings of weight and seat to be thought of, which must constantly engage the attention of a man who means to ride the same horse a hundred miles, or even fifty or forty.  Conscious that a fresh mount awaits him, he sits back lazily and never eases his weight for a moment; before he has gone thirty miles he will kick his feet out of the stirrups about once in twenty minutes, and if he has for the moment a quiet old stager who does not mind tricks, he will probably fetch one leg over and go a few miles sitting sideways.  He will go to sleep once or twice, and wake up apparently in the very act to fall—­though I believe that a man will sleep at a full gallop and never loosen his knees until the moment of waking startles him.  Nevertheless, and notwithstanding Lord Steepleton Kildare and his ride to Umballa and back in twenty-four hours, when a man, be he ever so strong, has ridden over a hundred miles, he feels inclined for a rest, and a walk, and a little sleep.

Once more an emissary of Ram Lal strode to my side as I rolled off the saddle into the cool grass at sunrise in a very impracticable-looking country.  The road had been steeper and less defined during the last two hours of the ride, and as I crossed one leg high over the other lying on my back in the grass, the morning light caught my spur, and there was blood on it, bright and red.  I had certainly come as fast as I could; if I should be too late, it would not be my fault.  The agent, whoever he might be, was a striking-looking fellow in a dirty brown