He called it Master, because no dog in the pack dared fight it, and told me that it could kill an armed man alone.
Now, as its baying warned us, Master was not half a mile away! The coming of the moonlight enabled us to gallop faster, especially as here the ground was smooth, being covered with a short, dry turf, and for the next two hours we gained upon the pack.

Yes, it was only two hours, or perhaps less, but it seemed a score of centuries.

The slopes of the Peak were now not more than ten miles ahead, but our horses were giving out at last.

They had borne us nobly, poor beasts, though we were no light weights, yet their strength had its limits.

The sweat ran from them, their sides panted like bellows, they breathed in gasps, they stumbled and would scarcely answer to the flogging of our spear-shafts.
Their gallop sank to a jolting canter, and I thought that soon they must come to a dead stop.
We crossed the brow of a gentle rise, from which the ground, that was sprinkled with bush and rocks, sloped downwards to where, some miles below us, the river ran, bounding the enormous flanks of the Mountain.
When we had travelled a little way down this slope we were obliged to turn in order to pass between two heaps of rock, which brought us side on to its brow.