The Baron was a heavy man and weighed quite sixteen stone in the saddle. He was mounted on a stout black cob about fifteen hands, which was making extraordinary exertions to get out of the mire, but the horses' floundering only made matters worse. My steed, a light-made thoroughbred mare, standing 15--2, having only to carry about ten stone, did not sink so deeply as the Baron's cob, and after a desperate scramble we managed to retrace our steps and regain sound ground. My trouble over, I fastened my muddy horse to a tree and hastened to see what I could do for my companion. His position had become very serious. The cob was lying on his side and had got the Baron under him.
"I cannot move," he called out; "this brute will be the death of me," and from all appearances what he said was not unlikely to happen.
I could see nothing of him except his head, and only the back and head of his horse were visible. I tried to enter the morass at a more favourable place, but I could not advance any distance before I sank up to the middle in nasty sticky slime. It was terribly annoying not to be able to render any assistance to the drowning man. At the critical moment when the Baron's head was disappearing from my sight I shouted as hard as I could "If you don't make a tremendous effort, Baron, you are a lost man; get free from your horse somehow; kick him."
My advice was not given a moment too soon. An opportune blow separated horse and rider, and benefited both.
The Baron waded with difficulty to a tree growing in the middle of the bog, and some friendly charcoal burners arriving on the scene we got a supply of ropes and soon pulled the Baron and his cob out of the quagmire. Having washed and dried our clothes the best way we could, we did not look quite so presentable as when we started, but felt none the worse, and guided by a native we were not long in reaching the welcome shelter of the restaurant, where we found that our appetites had not suffered from our compulsory mud bath.
"That was a novel experience," remarked the Baron as we sipped our Moulin à Vent? on the verandah of the restaurant.
"More novel than agreeable," I replied, "it looked all up with you, and I began to think of your heirs."
