brought, at first lustily,
then feebly until they starved to death. Then the vultures came, making
a loathsome feast on the bodies of the little creatures that had
perished so miserably. The work of extermination was complete.

Warruk advanced slowly and cautiously for now he knew that in the
strange country danger lurked--danger of a kind unknown to him and of a
subtle quality. If the creatures whose footprints he had seen and with
whose scent the border of the marsh was redolent could outwit the wary
birds that had always eluded him, what surprise might not they hold in
store for him?

But, there was that insistent urge that bade him advance. And, too,
Tumwah was stretching his devastating hand toward the lower country. The
animals that had found a temporary refuge in the oasis were moving
onward also, for the water in the pools was vanishing and the vegetation
began to droop. Day by day the sun's rays grew more intense until it
seemed they must set the world afire.

Two weeks later Warruk reached the margin of the great river that wound
its sluggish way through a strip of forested country hugging its banks.
But, mighty stream though it was, it had not been spared the wrath of
Tumwah's onslaught. Where ordinarily a wide expanse of water greeted the
eye, stretching in a ruffled, brown sheet to the dimly outlined fringe
of palms on the distant bank, there was now a series of sun-baked
sandbars several miles wide and many, many miles long. The river, still
of imposing width, flowed through a channel in the center of the sandy
wastes but bore little resemblance to its former awe-inspiring grandeur.

Flocks of gulls and skimmers flew shrieking and wheeling in masses
overhead or ran excitedly over the sand. Crocodiles, too, were in
evidence, for here there were water and food so there was not the need
to bury themselves in the mud and in a semi-conscious condition await
the coming of a friendlier season, as did their fellows in the inland
country.

It was indeed a new and strange world veiled with an impenetrable air of
mystery and romance.

At night the stars glimmered with an uncanny brightness. The vast
sandbanks, heretofore peopled only by the shrieking birds and rows of
crocodiles, assumed a different and even more animated appearance. For,
with nightfall turtles in legion forsook their abode on the muddy
river-bottom and sought the hot sand to lay their eggs. The shuffle of
their feet and the scraping of their