Before them spread the plains, flat and desolate-looking, covered with coarse grass, and stretching towards the horizon in vague immensity. West-ward the faint flush of sunset, delicately pale, lingered low down, but otherwise the sky was coldly clear, darkly blue, thick sprinkled with chill-looking stars. To the right the leaden-hued waters of the river moving sluggishly between low mud banks, and on the left sandy wastes, alternating with hillocks and convex-shaped mounds. All this desolation appearing ghostly under a veil of mist exhaled whitely from the hot earth.
Over these monotonous plains galloped the six fugitives. Philip and Jack in the van, Don Sebastian and his one soldier in the rear; between Tim, side by side with Peter. For some time they urged on their horses in silence. Then a sudden flare of crimson caused them to turn in their saddles. The low walls of Janjalla were crowned with smoke, beneath which leaped tongues of flame, crimson and yellow. A rapid, disjointed conversation ensued.
"Those brutes are burning the city!"
"It will only be some drunken soldiers. Xuarez will soon put a stop to that. He cannot afford to lose his city of refuge, after paying so much to gain it."
"Must we swim our horses across the river?" called out Grench, unexpectedly.
"Not unless the bridge is down. It was standing when we came this way a week ago."
Philip answered the question, and then cast an anxious look at the sky.
"I wish the moon would rise," he said disconsolately; "we need some light."
"What the deuce would be the good of that when we're on the high-road. Hang it, the moon would only show Xuarez how to follow us."
"Que dici?" asked Don Sebastian, looking at Jack.