ld
stop him, had drawn his knife across the horse's throat and taken a long
draught of blood.

Does it sound ghastly? But such things are, and his lips were dry and
parched, and his throat so swollen that he could only speak in hoarse
whispers, and so great was the temptation that Anderson, looking away at
the bare pitiless plain, with the mocking mirage in the distance, felt
that he too might as well drink and die; only the thought of the cripple
boy who would be alone in the world but for him, made him make one more
desperate effort for self-control.

He took the younger man's arm and dragged him on, skirting slowly round
the "dead finish" till at length, late in the afternoon, it gave place
to boree. His own senses were clear enough, but Helm was muttering
wildly, and he listened with unheeding ears to his babble of home and
mother and sweetheart. They could not go far, and soon they forced their
way in among the scrub, and though the burning thirst was worse than
ever, the shade was grateful. The crows stopped too, and settled on
the low trees, turning their evil blue-black heads on one side to get a
better view of their prey.

"I can't keep my head," moaned Helm, "I can't. I have been mad all day.
I know I have. It has stretched out into ages this long day and it's not
over yet. When were we lost? Yesterday? The day before? It feels like
years."

"Never mind," said Anderson, not unkindly, "it can't be much longer now.
Try to sleep, old man."

"Sleep! with a thousand devils tearing at me!"

But they did sleep after all, a wearied, troubled sleep, a broken sleep
full of frightful dreams, or still more cruel ones of cooling streams
and rippling waters. Night came, and Anderson awoke from what seemed to
him a doze of a moment to find his companion gone from his side. For a
second the thought came to him that it was not worth while to look for
him. He was mad--mad, and where was the use of troubling about him any
further; and then his better feelings, and perhaps that longing for
human companionship which we all must feel, made him rise up and look
for him. Up and down, he was staggering up and down, a hundred feet one
way and then back again on his own tracks.

"We must get on, old chap," he muttered when he saw Anderson, "we must
get on. You rest if you like though; there isn't anybody waiting for
you; but Mabel, she 's waiting for me and I must try and get back. She
would be disappointed else. Grieve! of cou