my ear. I
was drunk with sleep, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he
induced me to mount the only horse still capable of carrying me. We
were parched with thirst, and our plight was perhaps worse than it had
ever been, for all around stretched the fatal flowers, and it might
well be that we could not clear them before night fell, and their
poison became overpowering in its strength. On the horse, my head
cleared somewhat, probably because I was higher from the ground, where
the perfume hung heavily, although I could not rid myself of the
drowsiness. At midday we were forced to halt for a rest forced, too, to
take it in the glaring sun, on the top of a bare dune, for we dare not
even cover ourselves with a bundle of the plants for fear of the
poison. An hour or two we sat and grilled, and then forced ourselves
onward once more, for the pan was still distant, and we feared we
should not reach it before dark which would mean we would never reach
it at all! But struggle as we would, we could make but little progress,
and it was with mortal fear that I beheld the sun sink, and saw from a
high dune that there was fully a mile of thick flowers between us and
the pan, where dark bush and big trees showed plainly, and where the
flowers ended abruptly.

"Let us stay here," I urged Inyati, "surely we are safe here on the top
of the dune?" for we were fully fifty feet above the sea of flowers.

"No, master, no!" he answered emphatically; "if it were twice the
height we should die before the night is out. Push through we must,
even if we leave all our pack here and return for it tomorrow; and the
horses must come too, or we shall lose them. Nothing could live here
through the night." Hastily, as he spoke, he threw off the horses'
already light loads, leaving everything but his beloved "little gun" on
the top of the dune, and dragging the halter of the leading beast, he
started down the slope. Instantly on entering the dense growth I felt
the effect of the scent, which was now, although the sun had barely
disappeared, ten times stronger than it had been in the sunlight. No
faint sweetness now, but an overpowering scent similar to that of the
well-known "moon-lilies" but infinitely stronger, and stupefying to a
degree. Before fifty yards were traversed my head was spinning, and I
was staggering like a drunken man. I remember Inyati half dragging me
on to the horse again and feeling him lashing me to girth and saddle,
rememb