The conflagration grew. It seemed to be nearly
white-hot down below.
Bellairs wet his finger and held it extended upward.
"There's no wind that I can feel!" he muttered. "And yet, if that
were a grass-fire, there'd be game and rats and birds and things--
some of 'em would bolt this way. That's the Doonha barracks burning
or I'm a black man, which the Lord forbid!"
A minute later, every man in the section pricked up his ears. There
was no order given; but a sensation ran the whole length of it and
a movement from easy riding to tense rigidity that could be felt by
some sixth sense. Every man was listening, feeling, groping with
his senses for something he could neither hear as yet nor see, but
that he knew was there. And then, far-distant yet--not above, but
under the jolting of the gun-wheels and the rattle of the scabbards--
they could hear the clickety-clickety-clickety-click of a horse hard-
ridden.
They had scarcely caught that sound, they had barely tightened up
their bridle-reins, when another sound, one just as unmistakable,
burst out in front of them.
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