the roughest, and, through all its jolts and bangs and bumps and dips
and heaves, the eye of Ram Baksh rolled in its blood-shot socket,
seeking for the "big horses" he had so rashly sent into the wilderness.
The ponies that had done the last twenty miles into Deoli were nearly
used up, and did their best to lie down in the dry beds of nullahs.

A man came by on horseback, his servant walking before with platter and
meal-bag. "Have you seen any horses hereabouts?" cried Ram Baksh.
"Horses? What the Devil have I to do with your horses? D'you think I've
stolen them?" Now this was decidedly a strange answer, and showed the
rudeness of the land. An old woman under a tree cried out in a strange
tongue and ran away. It was a dream-like experience, this hunting for
horses in a wilderness with neither house nor hut nor shed in sight.
"If we keep to the road long enough we must find them. Look at the road.
This Raj ought to be smitten with bullets." Ram Baksh had been pitched
forward nearly on the off-pony's rump, and was in a very bad temper
indeed. The funeral found a house--a house walled with thorns--and near
by were two big horses, thirteen-two if an inch, and harnessed quite
regardless of expense.

Everything was repacked and rebound with triple ropes, and the Sahib was
provided with an extra cushion; but he had reached a sort of dreamsome
Nirvana, having several times bitten his tongue through, cut his boot
against the wheel-edge, and twisted his legs into a true-lovers'-knot.
There was no further sense of suffering in him. He was even beginning to
enjoy himself faintly and by gasps. The road struck boldly into hills
with all their teeth on edge, that is to say, their strata breaking
across the road in little ripples. The effect of this was amazing. The
tonga skipped merrily as a young fawn, from ridge to ridge. It shivered,
it palpitated, it shook, it slid, it hopped, it waltzed, it ricochetted,
it bounded like a kangaroo, it blundered like a sledge, it swayed like a
top-heavy coach on a down-grade, it "kicked" like a badly coupled
railway carriage, it squelched like a country-cart, it squeaked in its
torment, and lastly, it essayed to plough up the ground with its nose.
After three hours of this performance, it struck a tiny little ford, set
between steeply sloping banks of white dust, where the water was clear
brown and full of fish. And here a blissful halt was called under the
shadow of the high bank of a tobacco fie