But where can we hide?  The moor is flat and treeless, the forest two or three miles away in a straight line, and we can go neither straight nor fast.  If we cower behind one of the smoking brimstone mounds we shall be stifled; if we jump into one of the boiling springs we shall be scalded.

“Where can we hide?” I ask.

“Where can we hide?” repeated Carmen.

“That pool!  Don’t you see that, a little farther on, the brook forms a pool, and, though it smokes, I don’t think it is very hot.”

“It is just the place,” and with that Carmen runs forward and plunges in.

I follow him, first taking the precaution to lay my pistol and knife on the edge.  The water, though warm, is not uncomfortably hot, and when we sit down our heads are just out of the water.

We are only just in time.  Two minutes later the hounds, with a great crash, burst out of the forest, followed at a short interval by half a dozen horsemen.

“Curse this brimstone!  It has ruined the scent,” I heard Griscelli say, as the hounds threw up their heads and came to a dead stop.  “If I had thought those ladrones would run hither I would not have given them twenty minutes, much less forty.  But they cannot be far off; depend upon it, they are hiding somewhere.—­Por Dios, Sheba has it!  Good dog!  Hark to Sheba!  Forward, forward!”

It was true.  One of the hounds had hit off the line, then followed another and another, and soon the entire pack was once more in full cry.  But the scent was very bad, and seemed to grow worse; there was a check every few yards, and when they got to the brook (which had as many turns and twists as a coiled rope), they were completely at fault.  Nevertheless, they persevered, questing about all over the moor, except in the neighborhood of the sulphur mounds and the springs.

While this was going on the horsemen had tethered their steeds and were following on foot, riding over the azuferales being manifestly out of the question.  Once Griscelli and Sheba, who appeared to be queen of the pack, came so near the pool that if we had not promptly lowered our heads to the level of the water they would certainly have seen us.

“I am afraid they have given us the slip,” I heard Griscelli say.  “There is not a particle of scent.  But if they have not fallen into one of those springs and got boiled, I’ll have them yet—­even though I stop all night, or come again to-morrow.”

“Mira!  Mira! General, the forest is on fire!” shouted somebody.  “And the horses—­see, they are trying to get loose!”

Then followed curses and cries of dismay, the huntsman sounded his horn to call off the hounds and Carmen and I, raising our heads, saw a sight that made us almost shout for joy.

The fire, which all this time must have been smouldering unseen, had burst into a great blaze, trees and bushes were wrapped in sulphurous flames, which, fanned by the breeze, were spreading rapidly.  The very turf was aglow; two of the horses had broken loose and were careering madly about; the others were tugging wildly at their lariats.