Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short StoriesNesbit, E. (Edith)
General
Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories
Nesbit, E. (Edith)
Short stories
A piercing, half-human bawl of terror told where a steer had been
crowded over. Would the next leap carry them after him? Then Wade found
himself racing neck and neck with a big white steer, which the horse,
with marvelous instinct, seemed to pick from a bunch, and to cling to,
forcing him gradually ahead till, cutting him free from the bunch
entirely, he bore him off into the sage.
The group coming on behind followed its leader, and in, after them,
swung others. The tide was turning. Within a short time the whole herd
had veered, and, bearing off from the cliffs, was pounding over the open
plains.
Whose race was it? Peroxide Jim's, according to Wade, for not by word or
by touch of hand or knee had he been directed in the run. From the flash
of the lightning the horse had taken the bit, and covered an
indescribably perilous path at top speed, had outrun the herd and
turned it from the edge of the rim-rock, without a false step or a
tremor.
Bred on the desert, broken at the round-up, trained to think steer as
his rider thinks it, the horse knew as swiftly, as clearly as his rider,
the work before him. But that he kept himself from fright, that none of
the wild herd-madness passed into him, is a thing for wonder. He was as
thirsty as any animal of the herd; he knew his own peril, I believe, as
none of the herd had ever known anything; and yet, such coolness,
courage, wisdom, and power!
Was it training? Was it more intimate association with the man on his
back, and so, a further remove from the wild thing which domestication
does not seem to touch? Or was it all suggestion, the superior
intelligence above riding--not the flesh, but the spirit?
IN THE PASHA'S GARDEN
A STAMBOUL NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT
BY H. G. DWIGHT
I
As the caique glided up to the garden gate the three boatmen rose from
their sheepskins and caught hold of iron clamps set into the marble of
the quay. Shaban, the grizzled gatekeeper, who was standing at the top
of the water-steps with his hands folded respectfully in front of him,
came salaaming down to help his master out.
'Shall we wait, my Pasha?' asked the head _kaikji_.
The Pasha turned to Shaban, as if to put a question. And as if to answer
it, Shaban said,--
'The madama is up in the wood, in the kiosque. She sent down word to ask
if you would go up too.'
'Then don't wait.' Returning the boatmen's salaam, the Pasha stepped
into his garden. 'Is there company in the kiosque or is madama alone?'
he inquired.
'I think no one is there--except Zuembuel Agha,' replied Shaban, following
his master up the long central path of black and white pebbles.
'Zuembuel Agha!' exclaimed the Pasha. But if it had been in his mind to
say anything else he stopped instead to sniff at a rosebud. And then he
asked, 'Are we dining up there, do you know?'
'I don't know, my Pasha, but I will find out.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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