“Och, boy, pull up, or ye’ll kill the baste!” cried Barney, who thundered along at Martin’s side enjoying to the full the spring of his powerful horse; for Barney had spent the last farthing of his salary on the two best steeds the country could produce, being determined, as he said, to make the last overland voyage on clipper-built animals, which, he wisely concluded, would fetch a good price at the end of the journey.  “Pull up! d’ye hear?  They can’t stand goin’ at that pace.  Back yer topsails, ye young rascal, or I’ll board ye in a jiffy.”

“How can I pull up with that before me?” cried Martin, pointing to a wide ditch or gully that lay in front of them.  “I must go over that first.”

“Go over that!” cried Barney, endeavouring to rein in his horse, and looking with an anxious expression at the chasm.  “It’s all very well for you to talk o’ goin’ over, ye feather; but fifteen stun—­Ah, then, won’t ye stop?  Bad luck to him, he’s got the bit in his teeth!  Oh then, ye ugly baste, go, and my blissin’ go with ye!”

The leap was inevitable.  Martin went over like a deer.  Barney shut his eyes, seized the pommel of the saddle, and went at it like a thunder-bolt In the excitement of the moment he shouted, in a stentorian voice, “Clap on all sail! d’ye hear?  Stu’n-sails and sky-scrapers!  Kape her steady!  Hooray!”

It was well for Barney that he had seized the saddle.  Even as it was he received a tremendous blow from the horse’s head as it took the leap, and was thrown back on its haunches when it cleared the ditch, which it did nobly.

“Hallo! old boy, not hurt, I hope,” said Martin, suppressing his laughter as his comrade scrambled on to the saddle.  “You travel about on the back of your horse at full gallop like a circus rider.”

“Whist, darlint, I do belave he has damaged my faygurhead.  What a nose I’ve got!  Sure I can see it mesilf without squintin’.”

“So you have, Barney.  It’s a little swelled, but never mind.  We must all learn by experience, you know.  So come along.”

“Hould on, ye spalpeen, till I git my wind!”

But Martin was off again at full speed; and Barney’s horse, scorning to be left behind, took the bit again in its teeth and went—­as he himself expressed it,—­“screamin’ before the wind.”

A new sensation is not always and necessarily an agreeable thing.  Martin and Barney found it so on the evening of that same day, as they reclined (they could not sit) by the side of their fire on the campo under the shelter of one of the small trees which grew here and there at wide intervals on the plain.  They had left the diamond mine early that morning, and their first day on horseback proved to them that there are shadows as well as lights in equestrian life.  Their only baggage was a single change of apparel and a small bag of diamonds,—­the latter being the product of the mine during the Baron Fagoni’s reign, and which that worthy was conveying faithfully to his employer.  During the first part of the day they had ridden through a hilly and woody country, and towards evening they emerged upon one of the smaller campos, which occur here and there in the district.