I Have Never Seen A
Ghost, But I Know Exactly How I Will Feel If Ever I Do.
For a moment we stood spellbound with horror, and the next, realising
what had happened, were kneeling down beside the piteous head.
The thin
crust of earth had given way beneath the animal's hindquarters as it
grazed over the turf, and before it could recover itself it had slipped
bodily through the hole thus formed, and was standing on the rocky bed of
the underground river, with its head only in the upper air.
The poor brute was perishing for want of food and water. All around the
hole, as far as the head could reach, the turf was eaten, bare, and
although it was standing in a couple of feet of water it could not get at
it. While the Maluka went for help I brought handfuls of grass, and his
hat full of water, again and again, and was haunted for days with the
remembrance of those pleading eyes and piteous, nickering lips.
The whole camp, black and white, came to the rescue but it was an awful
work getting the exhausted creature out of its death-trap. The hole had
to be cut back to a solid ridge of rocky soil, saplings cut to form a
solid slope from the bed of the river to the ground above, and the poor
brute roped and literally hauled up the slope by sheer force and strength
of numbers. After an hour's digging, dragging, and rope-pulling, the
horse was standing on solid turf, a new pool had been added to the
Springs, and none of us had much hankering for riding over springy
country.
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