Lady Haigh looked round desperately, but found no remedy. Reluctantly she allowed herself to be helped into the saddle, and the ponies started off at once. For some time the grooms had found it difficult to hold them, for they were turning their heads uneasily towards the west, snuffing the air, and pricking their ears as though to listen for sounds. Now they needed no urging to fly along the strip of sward between the forest and the _jheel_; and it was with difficulty that their riders pulled up sufficiently to allow Murtiza Khan to get in front when the end of the swamp was reached, and a way had to be found through the jungle. The trooper, on his heavier horse, rode first, crashing through the underwood which had overgrown the almost invisible track, then came the two ladies, and the grooms panted behind, holding on to the ponies’ tails when the forest was sufficiently open to allow of a canter. From time to time Murtiza Khan looked back to urge his charges to greater speed, and on all sides the voices of the forest proclaimed the imminence of the danger. Flights of birds hovered distressfully over the riders’ heads, unwilling to leave their homes, but taking the eastward course at last; and through the undergrowth could be seen the timid heads of deer, all seeking safety in the same direction. When a more open space was reached the scene was very curious, for antelopes, wild pig, and jungle-rats, regardless alike of the presence of human beings and of each other, were all rushing eastwards, driven by the same panic. One of the grooms even shrieked to Murtiza Khan that he saw a tiger, but the trooper dismissed the information contemptuously. The tiger would have enough to do to save himself, and would not pause in his flight to attack his companions in misfortune. By this time there was no mistaking the smoke-clouds which travelled in advance of the fire, and brought with them the smell of burning wood and a confusion of sounds. The roar of the advancing flames, the crackling of branches, with an occasional crash when a large tree fell, filled the air with noise. The dry jungle burned like tinder, so that a solid wall of fire seemed to be sweeping over it. Underfoot were the dry weeds and sedges and jungle-grass, then a tangled mass of brushwood, above which reared themselves the taller trees, poplar or mimosa or acacia, all of them parched from root to topmost twig, an easy prey. Presently one of the grooms jerked out an inquiry whether it would not be better to abandon the ponies and climb trees, but the trooper flung back a contemptuous negative. “There were three Sahibs did that,” he said, “and when the trees were burnt through at the root, they fell down into the fire. Stay and be roasted if ye will, sons of swine. The Memsahibs and I will go on.”