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Updated: June 24, 2025
Gradually the black Waler drew away from all but two others, who hotly contested the leadership. He was running superbly, though he apparently received but small encouragement from his rider. As they drew round the curve at the further end of the course, he was galloping next to the rails. As they finally turned into the straight run home, he was leading.
Through a great tumult of shouting the two horses dashed past the winning-post. It seemed a dead heat; but, immediately after, the news spread that Hyde's horse was the winner. The Waler had gained his victory by a neck. Hyde was leading his horse round to the Rajah's stand. His jockey, looking white and exhausted, sat so loosely in the saddle that he seemed to sway with the animal's movements.
It used to be worth a journey to India to see Jimmy Macleod cram a cross-grained "waler" over an awkward fence, and squeeze the last ounce out of the brute in the run home on the flat.
It will be a close finish; the waler is first to feel the whip; there is a roar from the crowd; he is actually leading; whips and spurs are hard at work now; it is a mad, headlong rush; every muscle is strained, and the utmost effort made; the poor horses are doing their very best; amid a thunder of hoofs, clouds of dust, hats in air, waving of handkerchiefs from the grand stand, and a truly British cheer from the paddock, the 'waler' shoots in half a length ahead; and so end the morning's races.
What are you doing?" We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop of my riding-whip. "Doing?" I answered; "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I."
"Give it to me quick!" he said, and he threw a backward glance towards the approaching group Fielding, the egregious Pasha, and the rest. Dicky did not hesitate; he passed the pistol over. The Lost One took the pistol, cocked it, and held it to the head of the waler, which feebly turned to him in recognition. "Good-bye, old man!" he said, and fired.
In the centre of it a group of horsemen, nobles of the State or officials of the Palace in gay dresses and bright-coloured puggris, or turbans, with gold or silver-hilted swords hanging from their belts, sat on their restless animals behind the Maharajah, a pleasant-faced, athletic man in a white flannel coat, riding-breeches and long, soft leather boots, mounted on a tall Waler gelding.
Then the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars! Perhaps you do not see what an unspeakable crime he had committed. I will try to make it clear. The soul of the Regiment lives in the Drum-Horse, who carries the silver kettle-drums. He is nearly always a big piebald Waler. That is a point of honor; and a Regiment will spend anything you please on a piebald.
Had he not flogged an Arab to death with his own hand, the day before Fielding's and Dicky's arrival, and had he not tried to get this same Arab's daughter into his harem this Selamlik Pasha! The voice of the Lost One suddenly rose shrill and excited, and he shouted at the Pasha. "Swine! swine! swine!... Kill your slaves with a kourbash if you like, but a bullet's the thing for a waler!
Mounted on his little fourteen-hand Waler, in pith solar topee, grey Norfolk jacket, light cords, and brown blucher boots, and grasping in his hand his deadly seventy-inch spear, he goes forth to slay the wild boar, with all the feelings of romance and knightliness which some people think vanished from the world when Excalibur sank in the Lake of Lyonnesse.
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