d Nick. "I thought there was
no cure."

"It's not so bad as that, Nick. There are remedies for most bites--the
cobra's for instance. There is a root which the mangoust always eats,
when it feels itself bitten by a cobra, and which is, so far as is
known, a complete cure. Eau de luce and sweet milk are generally given
in this country for a snake's bite, and the natives have beans and
serpent stones, which, it is said, effect a cure. But the best thing to
do--what I should have done in your case, Nick, if you had been bitten--
is, first to fasten a ligature as tight as possible above the wounded
part, and then cauterise or cut away the injured flesh. Snakes' bites
are nasty things in these hot countries, and one can't be too careful.
But come, it is time we move on again. We ought to reach the river
banks early in the afternoon."

They recommenced their march accordingly, and had proceeded half a mile
or so further, when Frank suddenly called upon them to stop.

"What can that noise be?" he said. "I have heard it two or three times
in the course of the last few minutes. It doesn't sound like the cry of
a bird, or beast either. And yet I suppose it must be."

"I didn't hear anything," said Gilbert. "Nor I," added Warley. "But my
hearing is not nearly as good as Frank's. I've often noticed that."

"Let us stop and listen," suggested Charles.

They all stood still, intently listening. Presently a faint sound was
wafted to them, apparently from a great distance--from the edge of the
sandy desert, they fancied, which was still visible beyond the wooded
tracts.

"No," said Charles, when the sound had been twice repeated, "that is not
the cry of any animal, with which I am acquainted. It sounds more like
a human voice than anything else. If it was at all likely that there
was any other party of travellers in these parts, I should think they
were hailing us. But nothing can be more improbable than that."

"Still it is possible," urged Warley, "and they may be in want of our
help. Ought we not to go and find out the truth?"

"I think you are right, Ernest," said Frank.

"Well, I don't know," urged Gilbert, nervously. "I've heard all sorts
of stories of voices being heard in the deserts, enticing people to
their destruction, and it may be some ruse of the savages about here,
who want to get us into their hands, to possess themselves of our guns.
What do you say, doctor?"

"Why, as for the voices, Nic