“Look at our horses!” exclaimed Carleton.  “They are surely going mad.”  The animals were evidently uneasy at something.  They pricked up their ears, turned half round, and gazed with startled eye behind them; then strained with their heads and necks in the opposite direction to the vapour, snorting violently, and at last trying to break away from the trees to which they were tied.  A short time previously they had appeared much fatigued, but now they were all fire and impatience.

“It is impossible to remain here,” said Carleton.

“But whither shall we go?”

“Wherever our horses choose to take us.”

We untied the animals and sprang upon them.  But scarcely were we in the saddle when they started off at a pace as frantic as if a pack of wolves had been at their heels; and taking the direction of the creek, which ran between the palmetto plantation and a cypress wood, continued along its banks at the same wild gallop.  As we advanced, the creek began to widen; in place of palmettos, clumps of marsh reeds, and rushes showed themselves here and there.  An unearthly stillness prevailed, only broken now and then by the cry of a wild-goose; and even that appeared strange and unnatural in its sound.

“What can be the meaning of this?” cried Carleton.  “I am burning with heat, and yet I have not the slightest moisture on my skin.  All these signs are incomprehensible.  For God’s sake, sound the horn again.”

I did so, but this time the sound seemed to be forced back through the horn, and to die away upon my lips.  The air was so hot and parching, that our horses’ coats, which a short time previous had been dripping with sweat, were now perfectly dry, and the hair plastered upon them; the animals’ tongues hung out of their mouths, and they seemed panting for cooler air.  “Look yonder!” cried Carleton, and he pointed to the line of the horizon, which had hitherto been of grey, lead-coloured vapour.  It was now becoming reddish in the south-west quarter, and the vapour had taken the appearance of smoke.  At the same time we heard a sort of distant crackling, like a heavy running-fire of musketry, and which was repeated at short intervals.  Each time it was heard, our horses appeared scared and trembling.

The creek was getting rapidly wider, and the ground so swampy that it was impossible to proceed further.  Seeing this, we agreed to return to the prairie, and to try if it were not cooler among the palmettos.  But when we came to the place where we had crossed the creek, our horses refused to take the leap again, and it was with the greatest difficulty we at length forced them over.  All this time the redness in the horizon was getting brighter, and the atmosphere hotter and drier; the smoke had spread itself over prairie, forest, and plantations.  We continued retracing our steps as well as we could to the spot where we had halted.  “See there,” said Carleton; “not half an hour ago those reeds were as fresh and green as if they had just sprung out of the earth, and now look at them—­the leaves are hanging down, parched and curled up by the heat.”