er his hoarse shouts to the horse and myself becoming fainter,
remember dimly that the sjambok he flogged the horse with fell
frequently across my back and legs, but nothing could keep me from the
overwhelming desire to sleep And then all was a blank.

CHAPTER V I LOSE INYATI

Water! Delicious cold water, being dashed in my face and trickling
down my parched throat, brought me again to my senses. I lay, sore and
bruised and with throbbing head and limbs, beside some tall reeds,
between which water glittered in the light of the rising moon.

Inyati bent over me and he uttered an exclamation of joy as I opened my
eyes.

"Master! master! I thought thee dead," he cried, "and surely would I
then have died too! Right sorely did I beat thee, master, there among
the devil flowers, to keep thee from the sleep that kills; but there
was no one to beat me, and I had but strength and sense to tie myself
too upon my horse before I too slept. And surely my sjambok must have
helped them against the poison flowers, for they came right through,
having smelt the water maybe; and brought us here to its very side,
where I awoke to find them drinking. But the other is there in the
dunes he will sleep well, that one; and die."

And die he did; for the next day, refreshed and fearing the flowers
little in the day time, we went back to the dune where we had left our
packs. It was barely a mile, and about half way we found the third
horse, dead.

The pan was but a small one, and the delicious water of the night
proved to be but a few gallons of stagnant liquid full of animalculae;
but there was grass for the horses, and to our joy we found that the
flower belt did not extend beyond where we had emerged from it. Bare
dunes spread again beyond, but even these were welcome, after our
experience of the "devil flowers," as Inyati called them. Buck was
plentiful, and for a day or two we ate, drank, and slept to our heart's
content, gathering all the strength we could for our next attempt.
Inyati was full of confidence for the future, confident that we should
never have difficulties to encounter equal to those we had surmounted,
and that the diamonds and wives would soon be at our disposal.

"North, master! almost due north now and we shall find pans on the way
with water! My magic stone has told me that and it makes no mistakes!
And to-morrow we start again; for the water will last but a few days
moreover, we have been long on the pa