After half an hour's rest he put his horse to a smart trot, riding southward with a slight eastward trend in order to make gradual approach to the swampy region. In some twenty minutes he espied, some distance away to the left, a mound that would give him the look-out he desired. Riding towards it, and beyond, he dismounted, retraced his steps, and leading the horse, left it at the foot of the mound, screened from the north, and cautiously made his way on foot to the summit, where he found good cover behind a pile of ruins. And then he had a shock. To the north, probably two miles away, a small party of horsemen in extended order was riding towards him. They were too far away for him to distinguish their costume, but he had no doubt that they were some of the men who had pursued him from the bivouac. He had hoped and believed that the Turks, finding that he had the heels of them, had abandoned the idea of chasing him farther; but he was now forced to conclude that a few of the better-mounted men had been sent to follow him up, trusting perhaps to accident to deliver him into their hands. The order in which they rode seemed to show that they were following his trail on the sandy soil, with precautions against its possible disappearance in stony patches. Burnet had no fear of their catching him if it came to another race over the plain, but he had already come so far out of his true direction that the prospect of further loss of time was annoying. He threw a hasty glance eastwards. Far off he descried the irregular line of reeds that marked the course of the Euphrates. The middle distance was almost unbroken swamp, except in one quarter, the north-east, towards that bend to which he had been proceeding when he was captured. A rapid calculation determined him to make a dash in that direction. It would mean doubling on his tracks, and if the enemy caught sight of him as he rode off at an acute angle with their own course they would certainly strike off to their left and try to intercept him before he reached the river. But he could not afford further delay. He had no fodder for the horse; for himself he had only a few dates left, and no water, for his waterskin was leaky and useless; and the farther south he went, the worse would be his chances of making a safe passage of the river.