the western side of the _azuferales_ were all alight; sparks, carried by
the wind, had kindled several giants of the forest, which, "tall as mast
of some high admiral," were flaunting their flaring banners a hundred feet
above the mass of the fire.

It was the most magnificent spectacle I had ever seen, so magnificent that
in watching it we forgot our own danger, as, if the fire continued to
spread, the forest would be impassable for days, and we should be
imprisoned on the _azuferales_ without either food or fresh water.

"Look yonder!" said Carmen, laying his hand on my shoulder. A herd of deer
were breaking out of the thicket and bounding across the moor.

"Wild animals escaping from the fire?"

"Yes, and we shall have more of them."

The words were scarcely spoken when the deer were followed by a drove of
peccaries; then came jaguars, pumas, antelopes, and monkeys; panthers and
wolves and snakes, great and small, wriggling over the ground with
wondrous speed, and creatures the like of which I had never seen before--a
regular stampede of all sorts and conditions of reptiles and beasts, and
all too much frightened to meddle either with us or each other.

Fortunately for us, moreover, we were not in their line of march, and
there lay between us and them a line of hot springs and smoking sulphur
mounds which they were not likely to pass.

The procession had been going on about half an hour when, happening to
cast my eye skyward, I saw that the moon had disappeared; overhead hung a
heavy mass of cloud, the middle of it reddened by the reflection from the
fire to the color of blood, while the outer edges were as black as ink. It
was almost as grand a spectacle as the burning forest itself.

"We are going to have rain," said Carmen.

"I hope it will rain in bucketfuls," was my answer, for I had drunk
nothing since we left San Felipe, and the run, together with the high
temperature and the heat of the fire, had given me an intolerable thirst.
I spoke with difficulty, my swollen tongue clove to the roof of my mouth,
and I would gladly have given ten years of my life for one glass of cold
water.

Carmen, whose sufferings were as great as my own, echoed my hope. And it
was not long in being gratified, for even as we gazed upward a flash of
lightning split the clouds asunder; peal of thunder followed on peal, the
rain came down not in drops nor bucketfuls but in sheets, and with weight
and force sufficient to beat a