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But as they rejoiced herein, and betook them once more to tracking out the slot of Birdalone and the other, the sky became suddenly overcast, and down from the jaws of the mountain came a storm of wind and rain, and thunder and lightning, so great that they might scarce see each other's faces, and when it cleared off, in about an hour and a half, and went down the wind to the south-east, the stream was waxen great, and ran brown and furious down the dale, so that it was fordable only here and there; and as for tracking the slot of those twain, there was no need to talk thereof, for the fury of the driving rain had washed all away.
Assembling his well-seasoned and veteran troopers in force, he divided them into two formidable bands, one under the charge of his young brother Frederic Henry, the other under that most brilliant of cavalry officers, Marcellus Bax, hero of Turnhout and many another well-fought field. The river Ruhr was a wide but desultory stream, easily fordable in many places.
This, however, was fordable, and that the assailants knew. The slaughter amongst the rebels, meantime, from the little caution they exhibited, and their total defect of military skill, was murderous. Spite of their immense numerical advantages, it is probable they would have been defeated. Retreat itself became suddenly doubtful, depending, as it did, altogether upon the state of the wind.
But if his daughter cordially wished him success, and Lady Camper offered him the crown of it, why then he had only to pluck up spirit, like a good commander who has to pass a fordable river in the enemy's presence; a dash, a splash, a rattling volley or two, and you are over, established on the opposite bank.
This river, although in common seasons fordable, and in dry seasons scarcely fluent, is liable, after heavy falls of rain in the mountains, to rise suddenly to a great height, and cut off the communication between the public buildings on the one side, and the peopled suburbs and great road from Sydney on the other.
"Them roads air turrible rough fur that thar filly, ez ain't fairly broke good yit, nor used ter travel," he suggested. "I'd gin four hunderd fillies, ef I hed 'em, jes' ter know that thar boy air safe an' sound," Ben declared, as he mounted. He took the short cut, judging that, at the point where it crossed the river, the stream was still fordable.
One can imagine that the conspicuous heights of the Sinodun Hills were held, from the very beginning of human habitation in this district, as a permanent fortress, into which the neighbouring tribes could retire during war, and one can imagine that when the river was low in summer, and perhaps fordable, the spit of land before it, which formed an exception to the marshes round about, needed to be protected as a sort of bastion beyond the stream.
Watered by the two permanent streams of the Kishon and the Belus, it possesses a rich soil, which is said to be at present "perhaps the best cultivated and producing the most luxuriant crops, both of corn and weeds, of any in Palestine." The Kishon waters it on the south, where it approaches Carmel, and is a broad stream, though easily fordable towards its mouth.
During a fresh, the Rakaia is not fordable, at any rate, no one ought to ford it; but the two first-named rivers may be crossed, with great care, in pretty heavy freshes, without the water going higher than the knees of the rider.
In the same negligent and confident spirit they took up their station before Loxa. The country around was broken and hilly, so that it was extremely difficult to form a combined camp. The river Xenil, which runs by the town, was compressed between high banks, and so deep as to be fordable with extreme difficulty; and the Moors had possession of the bridge.
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