Even above the tumult of the deluge sounded the shrill alarm of the rurales as they broke position and turned to flee through the Gate. But already the flood was there, choking egress. They must scramble up the sides of the gorge like rats from a flooded hold; they must grope and cling by every illuminating flash of blue fire, waiting to see where the next handhold lay, how near the hungry yellow waters rushed. With Grant and the girl was nothing but security. Unprotected, they had bent their heads to the pounding mallets of water. When the firing abruptly ceased at the rush of their attackers for safety Grant heard the scream of a horse near at hand and remembered their tethered animals. Should they break away in their fright the plight of all five would be a desperate one. “Stay here!” he shouted in Benicia’s ear. “Going to the horses!” Grant crawled and groped his way over the slippery rocks, each seeming to be alive with the film of rushing water across it. He clambered down and to the right until he came to the pulpit rock behind which the beasts had been tethered by Quelele. The mule he found down, hopelessly noosed in his hobble rope and slowly strangling; the horses were huddled, tails to the storm, dripping and dejected. It took several minutes’ precarious work to get the pack-animal to his feet and freshly tethered. Then Grant began the retreat to the breastwork where he had left the girl. It was largely a matter of guesswork. Once he found himself against an unscalable wall and had to retrace his steps. Another time one foot slipped and he caught himself with his body halfway over the brink. A flash of lightning showed him two rifles lying side by side on a ledge below him--his rifle and Benicia’s; but the girl was gone. The fist of fear smote him terrifically. He screamed her name above the bellowing of the flood in the wash. No answer. He ran along the ledge that had been theirs until he came to a downward terrace; to that he leaped and along its blind way he fumbled. Came the ghost of a scream, thin above the diapason all about. His name--“Grant!” Then merciful lightning blazed blue and he saw. Below him on a broad shelf which overhung the whiteness of the torrent two figures, glistening like seals, were locked--they swayed. The man launched himself blindly out and down. He rolled; he slipped and wallowed against and under great boulders. At the end of seconds seeming æons he came to the rock apron where he had seen the struggling shapes. Sound of stertorous breathing guided him. He rose from his knees before Benicia and another, who was trying to drag her along the ledge. A revealing flash of fire gave him just a glimpse of a weasel face--Colonel Urgo.