s being scorched
as though by hot irons or through a burning-glass, and with a fearful
effort staggered up to find that the storm had passed, and that the
furious sun was blistering my excoriated skin. Rubbing the caked dirt
from my eyes, I looked down to see two mounds like those of graves, out
of which projected legs that had been white. Just then one pair of legs,
the longer pair, stirred, the sand heaved up convulsively, and, uttering
wandering words in a choky voice, there arose the figure of Oliver Orme.

For a moment we stood and stared at each other, and strange spectacles
we were.

"Is he dead?" muttered Orme, pointing to the still buried Higgs.

"Fear so," I answered, "but we'll look;" and painfully we began to
disinter him.

When we came to it beneath the lion-skin, the Professor's face was black
and hideous to see, but, to our relief, we perceived that he was not
dead, for he moved his hand and moaned. Orme looked at me.

"Water would save him," I said.

Then came the anxious moment. One of our water-bottles was emptied
before the storm began, but the other, a large, patent flask covered
with felt, and having a screw vulcanite top, should still contain a good
quantity, perhaps three quarts--that is, if the fluid had not evaporated
in the dreadful heat. If this had happened, it meant that Higgs
would die, and unless help came, that soon we should follow him. Orme
unscrewed the flask, for my hands refused that office, and used his
teeth to draw the cork, which, providentially enough the thoughtful
Quick had set in the neck beneath the screw. Some of the water, which,
although it was quite hot, had _not_ evaporated, thank God! flew against
his parched lips, and I saw him bite them till the blood came in the
fierceness of the temptation to assuage his raging thirst. But he
resisted it like the man he is, and, without drinking a drop, handed me
the bottle, saying simply:

"You are the oldest; take care of this, Adams."

Now it was my turn to be tempted, but I, too, overcame, and, sitting
down, laid Higgs's head upon my knee; then, drop by drop, let a little
of the water trickle between his swollen lips.

The effect was magical, for in less than a minute the Professor sat up,
grasped at the flask with both hands, and strove to tear it away.

"You cruel brute! You cruel selfish brute!" he moaned as I wrenched it
from him.

"Look here, Higgs," I answered thickly; "Orme and I want water badly
enough, an