like the roaring of a furnace came out of the north, with an
occasional louder boom when the pent-up fury of the storm burst through
the brown cloud. In reality, the sound was made by millions of
particles of sand being hurtled through the air by an electric storm.

The sound came nearer. The clouds were completely overhead now, from
north to south, from east to west. There was not a patch of blue to be
seen. The panting earth waited in abject fear. A puff of wind came,
hot and stifling, as if an oven door had suddenly been opened. It
passed over the mulgas, making them sigh and moan, and then was gone
again, leaving the same breathless stillness. Another puff, this time
cool and fresh. It also passed away and left the men with dread in
their hearts--the dread of an unknown, unseen foe.

The storm was very near. Sax was watching it so intently that he
jumped round suddenly when Yarloo touched him on the arm. The
black-fellow was pointing to the canteen. "Drink, little drop," he
said, and pointed to the approaching curtain of brown sand. He
evidently meant that the boys would be better able to stand against the
storm if they had a drink beforehand, so Sax motioned to Vaughan and
poured a little water out into the two pannikins. Neither of them
spoke. They were overawed by the might, the majesty, the mystery of
Nature.

Vaughan drank his water and lay down under the shelter. Sax did not
screw the top on the canteen for a moment, intending to pour a few
drops back again when he had finished. He held his hand over the hole
in the canteen and started to drink from his pannikin.

Suddenly the storm burst on them. Sax heard a terrific rushing sound
and looked round quickly. He was at once blinded as completely as if
an actual thick brown curtain had been blown around his head. At the
same time, some tremendous force caught him, nearly lifted him off the
ground, and threw him down sprawling on the sand several yards away.
The pannikin was wrenched from his hand, and the canteen--what of the
canteen?

Sax lay stunned for a moment, and then his first and only thought was
the canteen. He tried to crawl, but every effort on his part only gave
the enormous pressure of wind opportunity to drive him back, for as
soon as he lifted his head, it was caught and twisted as if some soft
strangling folds of cloth were being pulled around it from behind.

The light of the sun was blotted out completely, and it was a