[The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard]@TWC D-Link bookThe Brethren CHAPTER Nine: The Horses Flame and Smoke 29/34
Now follow me, for I know the ford, and at this season the stream is not deep.
Pilgrim Peter, ride you at my side in case I should be washed from the saddle; and pilgrim John, come you behind, and if they hang back, prick the mules with your sword point." Thus, then, they entered the river, which many might have feared to do at night, and, although once or twice the water rose to their saddles and the mules were stubborn in the swift stream, in the end gained the further bank in safety.
Thence they pursued their path through mountains till at length the sun rose and they found themselves in a lonely land where no one was to be seen. Here they halted in a grove of oaks, off-saddled their animals, tethered and fed them with barley which they had brought upon a mule, and ate of the food that Masouda had provided.
Then, having secured the beasts, they lay down to sleep, all three of them, since Masouda said that here there was nothing to fear; and being weary, slept on till the heat of noon was past, when once more they fed the horses and mules, and having dined themselves, set forward upon their way. Now their road--if road it could be called, for they could see none--ran ever upwards through rough, mountainous country, where seemed to dwell neither man nor beast.
At sunset they halted again, and at moonrise went forward till the night turned towards morning, when they came to a place where was a little cave. Before they reached this spot of a sudden the silence of those lonely hills was broken by a sound of roaring, not very near to them, but so loud and so long that it echoed and reechoed from the cliff.
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