rogress,
but he felt no pain but that awful, consuming thirst, knew no fear but a
ghastly dread that he might fail to reach his goal. For a single
mouthful of water at that moment he would have bartered his very soul.

His breathing came in great gasps. The sweat was running down his face.
His heart beat thickly, spasmodically. His senses were tottering. But he
clung tenaciously to the one idea. He could not die with his thirst
unquenched. If he crawled every inch of the way upon his stomach, he
would somehow reach the haven of his desire.

There came the padding of feet upon the sand close to him, and he cursed
aloud and bitterly. It was death this time, of course. He shut his eyes
and lay motionless, waiting for it. He only hoped that it might be
swift; that the hellish torture he was suffering might be ended at a
blow.

But no blow fell. Hands touched him, severed his bonds, dragged him
roughly up. Then, as he staggered, powerless for the moment to stand, an
arm, hard and fleshless as the arm of a skeleton, caught him and urged
him forward. Irresistibly impelled, he left the glare of the fire, and
stumbled into deep shadow.

Ten seconds later he was on his knees by a natural basin of rock in
which clear water brimmed, plunged up to the elbows, and drinking as
only a man who has known the thirst of the desert can drink.

V

He turned at last from that exquisite draught with the water running
down his face. His Arab dress hung about him in tatters. He was bruised
and bleeding in a dozen places. But the man's heart of him was alive
again and beating strongly. He was ready to sell his life as dearly as
he might.

He looked round for the native who had brought him thither, but it
seemed to him that he was alone, shut away by a frowning pile of rock
from the great amphitheatre in which the Wandis were celebrating their
return from the slaughter of their enemies. The shouting and the
shrieking continued in ghastly tumult, but for the moment he seemed to
be safe.

The moon was up, but the shadows were very deep. He seemed to be
standing in a hollow, with sheer rock on three sides of him. The water
gurgled away down a narrow channel, and fell into darkness. With
infinite caution he crept forward to peer round the jutting boulder that
divided him from his enemies.

The next instant sharply he drew back. A man armed with a long, native
spear was standing in the entrance.

He was still a prisoner, then; that