The ground was very bad, and now and again we rushed
through the whirling, choking "dust-devils" in the skirts of the
flying storm. There was a burning hot wind blowing that brought up
a stench of stale brick-kilns with it; and through the half light
and through the dust-devils, across that desolate plain, flickered
the brown holland habit on the gray horse. She headed for the
Station at first. Then she wheeled round and set off for the river
through beds of burnt down jungle-grass, bad even to ride a pig
over. In cold blood I should never have dreamed of going over such
a country at night, but it seemed quite right and natural with the
lightning crackling overhead, and a reek like the smell of the Pit
in my nostrils. I rode and shouted, and she bent forward and
lashed her horse, and the aftermath of the dust-storm came up and
caught us both, and drove us downwind like pieces of paper.
I don't know how far we rode; but the drumming of the horse-hoofs
and the roar of the wind and the race of the faint blood-red moon
through the yellow mist seemed to have gone on for years and years,
and I was literally drenched with sweat from my helmet to my
gaiters when the gray stumbled, recovered himself, and pulled up
dead lame.
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