A poor horseman, he would have outstripped Curtius to the gulf.

But no sooner had his dancing pony consented to make the first rebellious, sidelong plunge, than he had small joy of his boast.
Fore-legs sank floundering, were hoisted with a terrified wrench of the shoulders, in the same moment that hind-legs went down as by suction.
The pony squirmed, heaved, wrestled in a frenzy, and churning the red water about his master's thighs, went deeper and fared worse.

With a clangor of wings, the storks rose, a streaming rout against the sky, trailed their tilted legs, filed away in straggling flight, like figures interlacing on a panel.

At the height of his distress, Rudolph caught a whirling glimpse of the woman above him, safe on firm earth, easy in her saddle, and laughing.

Quicksand, then, was a joke,--but he could not pause for this added bewilderment.
The pony, using a skill born of agony, had found somewhere a solid verge and scrambled up, knee-deep, well out from the bank.