ffort,
and plunging with its utmost strength it had half risen to its
forelegs when one of the sacks slid from its place and got under its
hind legs, whereupon the canvas gave way, the sulphur fell out, and
the poor little brute slipped afresh and fell again, flat, full
length, and with awful force and weight, dashing its head against a
stone. At sight of this misadventure the prisoners above laughed once
more, and the carrier leaped from his own saddle and kicked the
fallen piebald in the mouth.

Now this had occurred within the space of a stone's-throw from the
house which Red Jason lived in and cleaned, and hearing the commotion
as he worked within he had come out to learn the cause of it. Seeing
everything in one quick glance, he pushed along as fast as he could
for the leg-fetters that bound him, and came upon the carrier as he
was stamping the life out of the pony with kicks on its palpitating
sides. At the next moment he had laid the fellow on his back, and
then, stepping up to the piebald, he put his arms about it to lift it
to its feet. Meantime the prisoners above had stopped their laughing,
and were looking on with eyes of wonder at Jason's mighty strength.

"God! Is it possible he is trying to lift a horse to its feet?" cried
one.

"What? and three sacks of sulphur as well?" cried another.

"Never," cried a third; and all held their breath.

Jason did not stop to remove the sacks. He wound his great arms first
under the little beast's neck, and raised it to its forefeet, and
then squaring his broad flanks above his legs that held the ground
like the hoofs of an ox, he made one silent, slow, tremendous upward
movement, and in an instant the piebald was on its feet, affrighted,
trembling, with startled eyeballs and panting nostrils, but secure
and safe, and with its load squared and righted on her back.

"Lord bless us!" cried the convicts, "the man has the strength of
Samson."

And at that moment one of the warders came hurrying up to the place.

"What's this?" said the warder, looking at the carrier on the ground,
who was groaning in some little blood that was flowing from the back
of his head.

At that question the carrier only moaned the louder, thinking to
excite the more commiseration, and Jason said not a word. But the
prisoners on the hillside very eagerly shouted an explanation;
whereupon the carrier, a prisoner who had been indulged, straightway
lost his privileges as punishment for his i