Gerome must have ridden quite fourteen stone.
About ten o'clock the horses arrived, in charge of a miserable-looking Shagird, in rags and a huge lamb's-wool cap, the only warm thing about him.

It was pitiful to see the poor wretch, with bare legs and feet, shivering and shaking in the cutting wind and snow.

The ponies, too, looked tucked up and leg-weary, as if they had just come off a long stage (which, indeed, they probably had) instead of going on one.
"Don't be alarmed; they are the proverbial rum 'uns to look at," said our host, who would not hear of our setting out without saddle-bags crammed with good things: cold meat, sardines, cigarettes, a couple of bottles of brandy, and a flask of Russian vodka.

But for these we must literally have starved _en route_.
"Good-bye.

Good luck to you!" from the colonel.
"En avant!" cries Gerome, with a deafening crack of his heavy chapar whip.