s were
giving out at last. They had borne us nobly, poor beasts, though we were
no light weights, yet their strength had its limits. The sweat ran from
them, their sides panted like bellows, they breathed in gasps, they
stumbled and would scarcely answer to the flogging of our spear-shafts.
Their gallop sank to a jolting canter, and I thought that soon they must
come to a dead stop.

We crossed the brow of a gentle rise, from which the ground, that was
sprinkled with bush and rocks, sloped downwards to where, some miles
below us, the river ran, bounding the enormous flanks of the Mountain.
When we had travelled a little way down this slope we were obliged to
turn in order to pass between two heaps of rock, which brought us side
on to its brow. And there, crossing it not more than three hundred yards
away, we saw the pack. There were fewer of them now; doubtless many
had fallen out of the hunt, but many still remained. Moreover, not far
behind them rode the Khan, though his second mount was gone, or more
probably he was riding it, having galloped the first to a standstill.

Our poor horses saw them also, and the sight lent them wings, for all
the while they knew that they were running for their lives. This we
could tell from the way they quivered whenever the baying came near
to them, not as horses tremble with the pleasureable excitement of the
hunt, but in an extremity of terror, as I have often seen them do when
a prowling tiger roars close to their camp. On they went as though they
were fresh from the stable, nor did they fail again until another four
miles or so were covered and the river was but a little way ahead, for
we could hear the rush of its waters.

Then slowly but surely the pack overtook us. We passed a clump of bush,
but when we had gone a couple of hundred yards or so across the open
plain beyond, feeling that the horses were utterly spent, I shouted
to Leo--"Ride round back to the bush and hide there." So we did, and
scarcely had we reached it and dismounted when the hounds came past.
Yes, they went within fifty yards of us, lolloping along upon our spoor
and running all but mute, for now they were too weary to waste their
breath in vain. "Run for it," I said to Leo as soon as they had gone by,
"for they will be back on the scent presently," and we set off to the
right across the line that the hounds had taken, so as not to cut our
own spoor.

About a hundred yards away was a rock, which fortunatel