"'Horses seem to have had about enough of it, don't you think so?' said a man who had pulled up just alongside of me.
"I turned in my saddle to answer, when, without the slightest warning, and giving vent to a groan which I seem to hear still, my horse suddenly fell to the ground. A dozen men slipped off their horses to lend a hand. We quickly unbuckled the girths and pulled the saddle off, but, even as we did so, I saw the glazing eye, which told unmistakably that the poor old chap had done his last gallop and jumped his last fence. He was as dead as Julius Cæsar!
"'By Jove, and it's one of the Queen's, too!' exclaimed an impetuous Subaltern.
"'Shut up, you young ass!' quickly rejoined his Major in low tones, and the good youth incontinently closed the floodgates of his eloquence just as an enormous man, Colonel de Boots, in command of the Cavalry depôt, who had driven out to see the fun, pushed his way through the little crowd assembled round the 'stiff un' in order to tender his advice.
"It was a tight place for those concerned, but the tension was quickly relaxed when, instead of looking at the horse, he turned to me and said, 'Deuced sorry _for your loss_, really--most annoying. My wife will be delighted to give you a seat in her carriage. My servant shall look after your horse until----'
"'Not for worlds, sir,' I replied hastily, 'that is all arranged for. But if you will really be so good as to take me to Mrs de Boots' carriage, and if she would not mind my entering it in this very muddy condition----?'
"'Delighted; come along with me!' We walked off, and the situation was saved.
"Only temporarily, though. I blandly received Colonel and Mrs de Boots' condolences on the loss of _my_ horse all the way home to Barracks, and I heard afterwards that they thought I 'took it in very good part.' The moment I was released from their carriage, after thanking them warmly for picking me up as they had done, I took to my heels and ran down to Major Laughton's quarters.
"'Here's a pretty mess, my boy!' he exclaimed; 'there'll have to be a Board to "sit on" the departed, to-morrow, and report in what way he came to his "frightful end," as the newspaper Johnnies call it. Which _is_ his "frightful end," by the way?' he added in meditative tones.