Their retreat being thus cut off in nearly all directions, the panic-stricken crew doubled to the left again, and sprang into the swamp, closely followed by their ever-increasing foes. At first and at some distance from the fountain-head the water felt warm and grateful to the lower limbs of the fugitives, but as they plunged in deeper and nearer to the springs, it became uncomfortably hot, and they began to scatter all over the place, in the hope of finding cool water. Some who knew the locality were successful. Others, who did not know it, rushed from hot to hotter, while some, who were blindly struggling toward the source of the evil at last began to yell with pain, and no wonder, for the temperature of the springs then—as it has been ever since, and is at the present day—was 120 degrees of Fahrenheit—a degree of heat, in water, which man is not fitted to bear with equanimity.
“Now, Konar, give them a tune from your pipe,” said Gadarn, whose eyes were blazing with excitement.
The hunter of the Swamp obeyed, and it seemed as though a mammoth bull of Bashan had been suddenly let loose on the fugitives.
To add to the turmoil a large herd of Bladud’s pigs, disturbed from their lair, were driven into the hot water, where they swam about in a frantic state, filling the whole region with horrid yells, which, mingling with those of the human sufferers, and the incessant barking of Brownie, rendered confusion worse confounded, and caused the wild animals far and near to flee from the region as if it had become Pandemonium!
The pigs, however, unlike the men, knew how to find the cooler parts of the swamp.
Perceiving his error when he stood knee-deep in the swamp, Gadarn now sought to rectify it by sending a detachment of swift runners back for his bows and arrows. But this manoeuvre took time, and before it could be carried out the half-boiled host had gained the other side of the Swamp, and were massing themselves together preparatory to a retreat into the thick woods.
“Now is our time,” said Arkal, rising up and drawing his sword. Then, with a nautical shout, and almost in the words of a late warrior of note, he cried, “Up, men, and at them!”
And the men obeyed with such alacrity and such inconceivable violence, that the stricken enemy did not await the onset. They incontinently sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees with mother earth, and scooted towards the river, into which they all plunged without a moment’s consideration.
Arkal and his men paused on the brink to watch the result; but the seaman was wrong about the probable fate of the vanquished, for every man of the robber band could swim like an otter, besides being in a fit condition to enjoy the cooler stream. They all reached the opposite bank in safety. Scrambling out, they took to the woods without once looking back, and finally disappeared.
During the remainder of that day Gadarn could do little else than chuckle or laugh.