only external object in all that gleaming waste. They passed on,
drawing up for a minute near her at the boy's instigation, and scanning
her decks narrowly as they were washed by the waves, but there was no
sign of life. Before they had gone further Caius caught sight of the
dark outline of another wreck; but this one was evidently of some weeks'
standing, for the masts were gone and the hulk half broken through.
There was still another further out. The mere repetition of the sad
story had effect to make the scene seem more desolate. It seemed as if
the sands on which they trod must be strewed with the bleached skeletons
of sailors, and as if they embedded newly-buried corpses in their
breast. The sandhills here were higher than they had been before, and
there were openings between them as if passages led into the interior
valleys, so that Caius supposed that here in storms or in flood-tides
the waves might enter into the heart of the dune.

They had not travelled far beyond the first and nearest wreck, when the
monotony of their journey was broken by a sudden strange excitement
which seized on them all, and which Caius, although he felt it, did not
at once understand.

The pony was jerked back by the reins which O'Shea held, then turned
staggering inland, and lashed forward by the whip, used for the first
time that day. Caius, jerked against the side of the cart, lifted up a
bruised head, gazing in wonder to see nothing in the path; but he saw
that the boy had sprung lightly from the cart, and was standing higher
up on the sand, his whole attitude betraying alarm as he gazed
searchingly at the ground.

In a moment the pony reared and plunged, and then uttered a cry almost
human in its fear. Then came the sensation of sinking, sinking with the
very earth itself. O'Shea had jumped from the cart and cut the traces.
Caius was springing out, and felt his spring guided by a hand upon his
arm. He could not have believed that the boy had so much strength, yet,
with a motion too quick for explaining words, he was guided to a certain
part of the sand, pushed aside like a child to be safe, while the boy
with his next agile movement tugged at the portmanteaus that contained
the medical stores, and flung them at Caius' feet.

It was a quicksand. The pony cried again--cried to them for help. Caius
next found himself with O'Shea holding the creature's head, and aiding
its mad plunging, even while his own feet sank deeper and deep