He was not alone. Two or three other escaped fugitives came crashing through the bushes, and stood by his side; but Hubert was the only man armed. He had been able to retain the scimitar so boldly won. Above them the palace still blazed, and cast a lurid light, which was reflected from the cold snowy peak of Hermon, and steeped in ruddy glare many an inaccessible crag and precipice. “Do any of my brethren know the country?” At first no one answered. Each looked at the other. Then one spoke diffidently: “If we follow this stream we shall eventually arrive at the waters of Merom.” “But remember that meanwhile men and dogs alike will hunt us, and that only one is armed, although the arm that freed us might sustain a host,” said another. “We must efface our track and then hide. Let each one walk in the brawling bed of the torrent; it leaves no scent for the dogs to follow,” said Hubert. They descended slowly and painfully amidst loose rocks and boulders, avoiding many a pitfall, many a black depth, until the dawn was at hand. Just then they heard a deep sound, like a cathedral bell, booming down the valley. “What bell is that?” “No bell, it is the deep bay of the bloodhounds.” “But they can find no trace.” “They are on the track we left, far above, before we entered the stream. If they cannot scent us in the water, they will have the sense to follow us downstream, keeping a dog on each bank in ease we leave it.” “What shall we do?” asked the helpless men. Above them the rocks rose wild and horrent, apparently inaccessible, but the keen eye of our Hubert detected one path, a mere goat path, used perhaps also by shepherds. “Follow me,” he said, and leaving the stream ascended the path, a veritable _mauvais pas_. At the height of some two hundred feet it struck inward through a wild region. “Here we must make a stand at this summit,” said Hubert, “and meet the dogs. I will give a good account of them.” He descended a little way to a point where the dogs could only ascend by a very narrow cleft in the rocks, and there he waited for the first dog. Soon a hideous black hound appeared, and with flashing eyes and gaping jaws sprang at our hero. He was received with a sweep of the scimitar, which cleft his diabolical head in twain, and he rolled down the deep declivity, all mangled and bleeding, to the foot, missing the path and falling from rock to rock, so that when he was found by the party who followed they could not tell by what means he had received his first wound. And when the other dogs arrived at the spot, which was deluged in gore, after the wont of their race they would follow the scent no farther.