I obeyed the only impulse I could have at such a moment, and galloped after as fast as my horse could go. I stayed for no consultation with my companions; I had already forged far ahead of them. They were too distant for speech.

I needed not their wisdom to guide me. No plan required conception or deliberation; the course was clear: by speed alone could the horse be taken, and his rider saved from destruction--_if yet safe_.

Oh, the fearfulness of this last reflection! the agony of the doubt!

It was not the hour to indulge in idle anguish; I repressed the emotion, and bent myself earnestly upon the pursuit. I spoke to my brave steed, addressing him by name; I urged him with hands and knees; only at intervals did I inflict the cruel steel upon his ribs.

I soon perceived that he was flagging; I perceived it with increased apprehension for the result. He had worn his saddle too long on the day before, and the wet weary night had jaded him. He had been over-wrought, and I felt his weariness, as he galloped with feebler stroke. The prairie-steed must have been fresh in comparison.

But life and death were upon the issue. Her life--perhaps my own. I cared not to survive her. She must be saved. The spur must be plied without remorse: the steed must be overtaken, even if Moro should die!

It was a rolling prairie over which the chase led--a surface that undulated like the billows of the ocean. We galloped transversely to the direction of the "swells," that rose one after the other in rapid succession. Perhaps the rapidity with which we were crossing them brought them _nearer_ to each other. To me there appeared no level ground between these land-billows. Up hill and down hill in quick alternation was the manner of our progress--a severe trial upon the girths--a hard killing gallop for my poor horse. But life and death were upon the issue, and the spur must be plied without remorse.

A long cruel gallop--would it never come to an end I would the steed never tire? would he never stop? Surely in time he must become weary?

Surely Moro was his equal in strength as in speed?--superior to him in both?

Ah! the prairie horse possessed a double advantage--he had started fresh--he was on his native ground.

I kept my eyes fixed upon him; not for one moment did I withdraw my glance. A mysterious apprehension was upon me; I feared to look around, lest he should disappear! The souvenirs of the former chase still haunted me; weird remembrances clung to my spirit. I was once more in the region of the supernatural.

I looked neither to the right nor left, but straight before me--straight at the object of my pursuit, and the distance that lay between us. This last I continuously scanned, now with fresh hope, and now again with doubt. It seemed to vary with the ground. At one time, I was nearer, as the descending slope gave me the advantage; but the moment after, the steep declivity retarded the speed of my horse, and increased the intervening distance.

It was with joy I crossed the last swell of the rolling prairie, and beheld a level plain stretching before us. It was with joy I perceived that upon the new ground I was rapidly gaining upon the steed!

And rapidly I continued to gain upon him, until scarcely three hundred yards were between us. So near was I, that I could trace the outlines of _her_ form--her prostrate limbs--still lashed to the croup--her garments loose and torn--her ankles--her long dark hair dishevelled and trailing to the ground--even her pallid cheek I could perceive, as at intervals the steed tossed back his head to utter his wild taunting neigh. O God! there was blood upon it!

I was near enough to be heard. I shouted in my loudest voice; I called her by name. I kept my eyes upon her, and with throbbing anxiety listened for a response.

I fancied that her head was raised, as though she understood and would have answered me. I could hear no voice, but her feeble cry might have been drowned by the clatter of the hoofs.

Again I called aloud--again and again pronouncing her name.

Surely I heard a cry? surely her head was raised from the withers of the horse? It was so--I could not be mistaken.

"Thank Heaven, she lives!"

I had scarcely uttered the prayer, when I felt my steed yield beneath me as though he was sinking into the bosom of the earth. I was hurled out of the saddle, and flung head-foremost upon the plain. My horse had broken through the burrow of the prairie marmot, and the false step had brought him with violence to the ground.

I was neither stunned nor entangled by the fall; and in a few seconds had regained my feet, my bridle, and saddle. But as I headed my horse once more toward the chase, the white steed and his rider had passed out of sight.

CHAPTER SIXTY SIX.

LOST IN A CHAPPARAL.

I was chagrined, frantic, and despairing, but not surprised. This time there was no mystery about the disappearance of the steed; the chapparal explained it. Though I no longer saw him, he was yet within hearing.

His footfall on the firm ground, the occasional snapping of a dead stick, the whisk of the recoiling branches, all reached my ears as I was remounting.

These sounds guided me, and without staying to follow his tracks, I dashed forward to the edge of the chapparal--at the point nearest to where I heard him moving.

I did not pause to look for an opening, but, heading in the direction whence came the sounds, I spurred forward into the thicket.

Breasting the bushes that reached around, his neck, or bounding over them, my brave horse pressed on; but he had not gone three lengths of himself before I recognised the imprudence of the course I was pursuing: I now saw I should have _followed the tracks_.

I no longer heard the movements of the steed--neither foot-stroke, nor snapping sticks, nor breaking branches. The noise made by my own horse, amid the crackling acacias, drowned every other sound; and so long as I kept in motion, I moved with uncertainty. It was only when I made stop that I could again hear the chase struggling through the thicket; but now the sounds were faint and far distant--growing still fainter as I listened.

Once more I urged forward my horse, heading him almost at random; but I had not advanced a hundred paces, before the misery of uncertainty again impelled me to halt.

This time I listened and heard nothing--not even the recoil of a bough.

The steed had either stopped, and was standing silent, or, what was more probable, had gained so so far in advance of me that his hoof-stroke was out of hearing.

Half-frantic, angered at myself, too much excited for cool reflection, I lanced the sides of my horse, and galloped madly through the thicket.

I rode several hundred yards before drawing bridle, in a sort of desperate hope I might once more bring myself within earshot of the chase.

Again I halted to listen. My recklessness proved of no avail. Not a sound reached my ear: even had there been sounds, I should scarcely have heard them above that that was issuing from the nostrils of my panting horse; but sound there was none. Silent was the chapparal around me-- silent as death; not even a bird moved among its branches.

I felt something like self-execration: my imprudence I denounced over and over. But for my rash haste, I might yet have been upon the trail-- perhaps within sight of the object of pursuit. Where the steed had gone, surely I could have followed. Now he was gone I knew not whither--lost--his trail lost--all lost!

To recover the trace of him, I made several casts across the thicket. I rode first in one direction, then in another, but all to no purpose. I could find neither hoof-track nor broken branch.

I next bethought me of returning to the open prairie, there retaking the trail, and following it thence. This was clearly the wisest,--in fact, the only course in which there was reason. I should easily recover the trail, at the point where the horse had entered the chapparal, and thence I might follow it without difficulty.

I turned my horse round, and headed him in the direction of the prairie--or rather in what I supposed to be the direction--for this too had become conjecture.

It was not till I had ridden for a half-hour--for more than a mile through glade and bush--not till I had ridden nearly twice as far in the opposite direction--and then to right, and then to left--that I pulled up my broken horse, dropped the rein upon his withers, and sat bent in my saddle under the full conviction that I too was lost.

Lost in the chapparal--that parched and hideous jungle, where every plant that carries a thorn seemed to have place. Around grew _acacias, mimosas, gleditschias, robinias, algarobias_--all the thorny legumes of the world; above towered the splendid _fouquiera_ with spinous stem; there nourished the "tornillo" (_prosopis glandulosa_), with its twisted beans; there the "junco" (_koeblerinia_), whose very leaves are thorns.

There saw I spear-pointed yuccas and clawed bromelias (_agave_ and _dasylirion_); there, too, the universal cactacese (_opuntia, mamillaria, cereus_, and _echinocactus_); even the very grass was thorny--for it was a species of the "mezquite-grass," whose knotted culms are armed with sharp spurs!

Through this horrid thicket I had not passed unscathed; my garments were already torn, my limbs were bleeding.

_My_ limbs--and hers?

Of hers alone was I thinking: those fair-proportioned members--those softly-rounded arms--that smooth, delicate skin--bosom and shoulders bare--the thorn--the scratch--the tear. Oh! it was agony to think!

By action alone might I hope to still my emotions; and once more rousing myself from the lethargy of painful thought, I urged my steed onward through the bushes.

CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN.

ENCOUNTER WITH JAVALL.

I had no mark to guide me, either on the earth or in the heavens. I had an indefinite idea that the chase had led westward, and therefore to get back to the prairie, I ought to head towards the east.

But how was I to distinguish east from west? In the chapparal both were alike, and so too upon the sky. No sun was visible; the canopy of heaven was of a uniform leaden colour; upon its face were no signs by which the cardinal points could have been discovered.