Shasta soon learned, when he heard Bree talking like that, to prepare for a gallop.
After they had travelled on for weeks and weeks past more bays and headlands and rivers and villages than Shasta could remember, there came a moonlit night when they started their journey at evening, having slept during the day. They had left the downs behind them and were crossing a wide plain with a forest about half a mile away on their left. The sea, hidden by low sandhills, was about the same distance on their right. They had jogged along for about an hour, sometimes trotting and sometimes walking, when Bree suddenly stopped.
"What's up?" said Shasta.
"S-s-ssh!" said Bree, craning his neck round and twitching his ears. "Did you hear something? Listen."
"It sounds like another horse - between us and the wood," said Shasta after he had listened for about a minute.
"It is another horse," said Bree. "And that's what I don't like."
"Isn't it probably just a farmer riding home late?" said Shasta with a yawn.
"Don't tell me!" said Bree. "That's not a farmer's riding. Nor a farmer's horse either. Can't you tell by the sound? That's quality, that horse is. And it's being ridden by a real horseman. I tell you what it is, Shasta. There's a Tarkaan under the edge of that wood. Not on his war horse - it's too light for that. On a fine blood mare, I should say."
"Well, it's stopped now, whatever it is," said Shasta.
"You're right," said Bree. "And why should he stop just when we do? Shasta, my boy, I do believe there's someone shadowing us at last."
"What shall we do?" said Shasta in a lower whisper than before. "Do you think he can see us as well as hear us?"
"Not in this light so long as we stay quite still," answered Bree. "But look! There's a cloud coming up. I'll wait till that gets over the moon. Then we'll get off to our right as quietly as we can, down to the shore. We can hide among the sandhills if the worst comes to the worst."
They waited till the cloud covered the moon and then, first at a walking pace and afterwards at a gentle trot, made for the shore.
The cloud was bigger and thicker than it had looked at first and soon the night grew very dark. Just as Shasta was saying to himself, "We must be nearly at those sandhills by now," his heart leaped into his mouth because an appalling noise had suddenly risen up out of the darkness ahead; a long snarling roar, melancholy and utterly savage. Instantly Bree swerved round and began galloping inland again as fast as he could gallop.
"What is it?" gasped Shasta.
"Lions!" said Bree, without checking his pace or turning his head.
After that there was nothing but sheer galloping for some time. At last they splashed across a wide, shallow stream and Bree came to a stop on the far side. Shasta noticed that he was trembling and sweating all over.