Over these monotonous plains galloped the six fugitives. Philip and Jack in the van, Don Sebastian and his one soldier in the rear; between Tim, side by side with Peter. For some time they urged on their horses in silence. Then a sudden flare of crimson caused them to turn in their saddles. The low walls of Janjalla were crowned with smoke, beneath which leaped tongues of flame, crimson and yellow. A rapid, disjointed conversation ensued. "Those brutes are burning the city!" "It will only be some drunken soldiers. Xuarez will soon put a stop to that. He cannot afford to lose his city of refuge, after paying so much to gain it." "Must we swim our horses across the river?" called out Grench, unexpectedly. "Not unless the bridge is down. It was standing when we came this way a week ago." Philip answered the question, and then cast an anxious look at the sky. "I wish the moon would rise," he said disconsolately; "we need some light." "What the deuce would be the good of that when we're on the high-road. Hang it, the moon would only show Xuarez how to follow us." "Que dici?" asked Don Sebastian, looking at Jack. "The Señor Correspoñsal thinks we might be pursued." "I doubt it, Don Juan. Xuarez will be too busy checking the excesses of his soldiers. Besides, Señor, as we escaped in the confusion, it may be that we will not be missed for some hours." Peter, unaccustomed to riding, began to feel sore with this incessant galloping, and raised his voice in protest. "I hope we will be able to rest at Centeotl. When do we reach it?" "Before midnight, probably. Then we will rest till dawn, get fresh horses, and push on to Tlatonac." "Hope we'll get there," muttered Jack, shaking his reins. "But if the Indians----" "Deuce take the Indians," retorted Philip, irritably. "Come on Jack, and don't worry so much." Their horses were fortunately quite fresh, having been mewed up in Janjalla without exercise for some weeks. Stretching their necks, they clattered along at a breakneck speed. The road was as hard as flint, and their iron-shod hoofs struck out sparks from the loose stones. The riders, with their heads bent against the wind whizzing past their ears, let the reins hang loosely, and pressed on with blind trust along the highway leading to Centeotl. Here and there they passed a flat-roofed house, deserted by its occupants, and standing up lonely, a white splotch amid the vague gloom of its flat acreage. Clumps of trees loomed suddenly against the clear sky, at times a ragged aloe sprang spectral-like from the reddish soil, thorny thickets lay densely in the hollows, tall spear-grass waved on the tops of undulating drifts of sand, and at intervals an oasis of rank herbage would frame an oval pool thickly fringed with reeds.