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The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

The Headless Horseman

Prologue

The stag of Texas [1] , reclining in midnight lair, is startled from his slumbers by the hoofstroke of a horse.

He does not forsake his covert, nor yet rise to his feet. His domain is shared by the wild steeds of the savannah [2] , given to nocturnal straying. He only uprears his head; and, with antlers o’ertopping the tall grass, listens for a repetition of the sound.

Again is the hoofstroke heard, but with altered intonation. There is a ring of metal – the clinking of steel against stone.

The sound, significant to the ear of the stag, causes a quick change in his air and attitude. Springing clear of his couch, and bounding a score of yards across the prairie [3] , he pauses to look back upon the disturber of his dreams.

In the clear moonlight of a southern sky, he recognises the most ruthless of his enemies – man. One is approaching upon horseback.

Yielding to instinctive dread, he is about to resume his flight: when something in the appearance of the horseman – some unnatural seeming – holds him transfixed to the spot.

With haunches in quivering contact with the sward, and frontlet faced to the rear, he continues to gaze – his large brown eyes straining upon the intruder in a mingled expression of fear and bewilderment.

What has challenged the stag to such protracted scrutiny?

The horse is perfect in all its parts – a splendid steed, saddled, bridled, and otherwise completely caparisoned. In it there appears nothing amiss – nothing to produce either wonder or alarm. But the man – the rider? Ah! About him there is something to cause both – something weird – something wanting !

By heavens! it is the head!

Even the unreasoning animal can perceive this; and, after gazing a moment with wildered eyes – wondering what abnormal monster thus mocks its cervine intelligence – terror-stricken it continues its retreat; nor again pauses, till it has plunged through the waters of the Leona [4] , and placed the current of the stream between itself and the ghastly intruder.

Heedless of the affrighted deer – either of its presence, or precipitate flight – the Headless Horseman rides on.

He, too, is going in the direction of the river. Unlike the stag, he does not seem pressed for time; but advances in a slow, tranquil pace: so silent as to seem ceremonious.

Apparently absorbed in solemn thought, he gives free rein to his steed: permitting the animal, at intervals, to snatch a mouthful of the herbage growing by the way. Nor does he, by voice or gesture, urge it impatiently onward, when the howl-bark of the prairie-wolf causes it to fling its head on high, and stand snorting in its tracks.

He appears to be under the influence of some all-absorbing emotion, from which no common incident can awake him. There is no speech – not a whisper – to betray its nature. The startled stag, his own horse, the wolf, and the midnight moon, are the sole witnesses of his silent abstraction.

His shoulders shrouded under a  serape [5] , one edge of which, flirted up by the wind, displays a portion of his figure: his limbs encased in “water-guards” of jaguar-skin: thus sufficiently sheltered against the dews of the night, or the showers of a tropical sky, he rides on – silent as the stars shining above, unconcerned as the cicada [6] that chirrups in the grass beneath, or the prairie breeze playing with the drapery of his dress.