Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

A moving incident, illustrative of the extraordinary strength, as well as the attachment of the Arab horses, is given by Lamartine, in his beautiful travels in the East:
“An Arab Chief, with his tribe, had attacked in the night a caravan of Damascus, and plundered it; when loaded with their spoils, however, the robbers were overtaken in their return, by some horsemen of the Pacha of Acre, who killed several and bound the remainder with cords. In this State of bondage they brought one of the prisoners named Aboul Marck, to Acre, and laid him , bound hand and foot, wounded as he was, at the entrance of their tent, as they slept during the night.
“Kept awake by the pain of his wounds, the Arab heard his horse’s neigh at a little distance, and being desirous to stroke, for the last time, the companion of his life, he dragged himself up, bound as he was, to his horse, which was picketed at a short distance. “Poor friend,” said he, “what will you do among the Turks? You will be shut up under the roof of a Khan” with the horses of a pacha, or an aga; no longer will the women and children of the tent bring you barley or camel’s milk in the hollow of their hands; no longer will you gallop, free as the wind of Egypt, in the desert; no longer will you cleave with your bosom the waters of the Jordan, which cool your sides, as pure as the foam of your lips. I am to be a slave, you at least may go free. Go; return to your tent, which you know so well; tell my wife that Abouel Marck will return no more; put your head still in the folds of the tent, and lick the hands of my children.”
“With these words as his hands were tied, he undid with his teeth the fetters which held the courser bound, and set him at Liberty; but the noble animal on receiving its freedom, instead of bounding away to the desert, bent its head over its master, and seeing him in fetters on the ground, took his clothes gently in his teeth, lifted him up, and set off at full speed towards home. Without even resting, he made straight for the distant but well known tent in the mountains of Arabia. He arrived there in safety, and laid his master safe down at the feet of his wife and children, and immediately dropped down dead with fatigue. The whole tribe mourned him; and his name is still constantly in the mouths if the Arabs in Jericho.”