"But how? We are in the enemies' country and without horses, and we know not where Mejia is." "I don't think he is far off. He is not the man to retreat after a drawn battle. Until he has beaten Griscelli or Griscelli has beaten him, you may be sure he won't go back to the llanos; his men would not let him. As for horses, we must appropriate the first we come across, either by stratagem or force." "Is there a way out of the forest on this side?" "Yes, there is a good trail made by Indian invalids who come here to drink the waters. Our difficulty will not be so much in finding our friends as avoiding our enemies. A few hours' walk will bring us to more open country, but we cannot well start until--" "Good heavens! What is that?" I exclaimed, as a plaintive cry, which ended in a wail of anguish, such as might be given by a lost soul in torment, rang through the forest. "It's an _araguato_, a howling monkey," said Carmen, indifferently. "That's only some old fellow setting the tune; we shall have a regular chorus presently." And so we had. The first howl was followed by a second, then by a third, and a fourth, and soon all the _araguatoes_ in the neighborhood joined in, and the din became so agonizing that I was fain to put my fingers in my ears and wait for a lull. "It sounds dismal enough, in all conscience--to us; but I think they mean it for a cry of joy, a sort of morning hymn; at any rate, they don't generally begin until sunrise. But these are perhaps mistaking the fire for the sun." And no wonder. It was spreading rapidly. The leafless trees that bordered the western side of the _azuferales_ were all alight; sparks, carried by the wind, had kindled several giants of the forest, which, "tall as mast of some high admiral," were flaunting their flaring banners a hundred feet above the mass of the fire. It was the most magnificent spectacle I had ever seen, so magnificent that in watching it we forgot our own danger, as, if the fire continued to spread, the forest would be impassable for days, and we should be imprisoned on the _azuferales_ without either food or fresh water. "Look yonder!" said Carmen, laying his hand on my shoulder. A herd of deer were breaking out of the thicket and bounding across the moor. "Wild animals escaping from the fire?" "Yes, and we shall have more of them." The words were scarcely spoken when the deer were followed by a drove of peccaries; then came jaguars, pumas, antelopes, and monkeys; panthers and wolves and snakes, great and small, wriggling over the ground with wondrous speed, and creatures the like of which I had never seen before--a regular stampede of all sorts and conditions of reptiles and beasts, and all too much frightened to meddle either with us or each other. Fortunately for us, moreover, we were not in their line of march, and there lay between us and them a line of hot springs and smoking sulphur mounds which they were not likely to pass.