g foes. At first and at
some distance from the fountain-head the water felt warm and grateful to
the lower limbs of the fugitives, but as they plunged in deeper and
nearer to the springs, it became uncomfortably hot, and they began to
scatter all over the place, in the hope of finding cool water. Some who
knew the locality were successful. Others, who did not know it, rushed
from hot to hotter, while some, who were blindly struggling toward the
source of the evil, at last began to yell with pain, and no wonder, for
the temperature of the springs then--as it has been ever since, and is
at the present day--was 120 degrees of Fahrenheit--a degree of heat, in
water, which man is not fitted to bear with equanimity.

"Now, Konar, give them a tune from _your_ pipe," said Gadarn, whose eyes
were blazing with excitement.

The hunter of the Swamp obeyed, and it seemed as though a mammoth bull
of Bashan had been suddenly let loose on the fugitives.

To add to the turmoil a large herd of Bladud's pigs, disturbed from
their lair, were driven into the hot water, where they swam about in a
frantic state, filling the whole region with horrid yells, which,
mingling with those of the human sufferers, and the incessant barking of
Brownie, rendered confusion worse confounded, and caused the wild
animals far and near to flee from the region as if it had become
Pandemonium!

The pigs, however, unlike the men, knew how to find the cooler parts of
the swamp.

Perceiving his error when he stood knee-deep in the swamp, Gadarn now
sought to rectify it by sending a detachment of swift runners back for
his bows and arrows. But this manoeuvre took time, and before it could
be carried out the half-boiled host had gained the other side of the
Swamp, and were massing themselves together preparatory to a retreat
into the thick woods.

"Now is _our_ time," said Arkal, rising up and drawing his sword. Then,
with a nautical shout, and almost in the words of a late warrior of
note, he cried, "Up, men, and at them!"

And the men obeyed with such alacrity and such inconceivable violence,
that the stricken enemy did not await the onset. They incontinently
sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees with mother earth, and scooted
towards the river, into which they all plunged without a moment's
consideration.

Arkal and his men paused on the brink to watch the result; but the
seaman was wrong about the probable fate of the vanquished, for every
ma