, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out to
the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid lest
he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in the
sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken and
very much frightened, but not in any way injured.

After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
started again.

On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.

Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a step
farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our
water-bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had
brought with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles'
tramp home.

At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work, for
with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living
creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. Evidently
it was too dry