A level path now enabled them to canter, and they reached the first belt of trees ten minutes after the moulvie's men set out for Rai Bareilly. Luck, which was befriending Chumru that day, must have made possible that burst of speed at the right moment. They were discussing their plans in the gloom of a grove of giant pipals when the clatter of horses hard ridden came from the road they had just quitted. There could be no doubting the errand that brought a cavalcade thus furiously from the direction of Lucknow. It was so near a thing that for a little while they could not be certain they had escaped unseen. But the riders whirled along towards Rai Bareilly, and in another quarter of an hour the night would be their best guardian. "That settles it," said Malcolm, in whose veins the blood was now coursing with its normal vitality, though, for the same reason, his right forearm ached abominably. "It would be folly to attempt the road again. Let us make for the river. We must find a boat there, and get men to take us to Allahabad, either by hire or force." "How far is it to the river, sahib?" "About twenty-five miles." "Praise be to Allah! That is better than seventy, for my feet are weary of that accursed Brahmin's boots." They stumbled on, leading the horses, until the first dark hour made progress impossible. Then, when the evening mists melted and the stars gave a faint light, they resumed the march, for every mile gained now was worth five at dawn if perchance their hunters thought of making a circular sweep of the country in the neighborhood of Rai Bareilly. It was a glorious night. The rain of the preceding day had freshened the air, and towards midnight the moon sailed into the blue arc overhead, so they were able to mount again and travel at a faster pace. Twice they were warned by the barking of dogs of the proximity of small villages. They gave these places a wide berth, since there was no knowing what hap might bring a ryot who had seen them into communication with the moulvie's followers. Each hamlet marked the center of a cultivated area. They could distinguish the jungle from the arable land almost by the animals they disturbed. A gray wolf, skulking through the sparsely wooded waste, would be succeeded by a herd of timid deer. Then a sounder of pigs, headed by a ten-inch tusker, would scamper out of the border crop, while a pack of jackals, rending the calm night with their maniac yelping, would start every dog within a mile into a frenzy of hoarse barking. Sometimes a fox slunk across their path. Out of many a tuft they drove a startled hare. In the dense undergrowth hummed and rustled a hidden life of greater mystery.