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i7,ooo FEET ABOVE THE SEA. 223
Well, if we could do nothing else, we could at any rate
thoroughly warm ourselves. Then we fired off a couple
of revolver shots, but they died away in the dark void,
without eliciting so much as an echo by way of answer. We
shouted, we listened, holding our breath. Silence, a silence
as of the grave ! not a single gleam of the distant fire !
Perhaps the people—our people—were tired after a forced
march, and were sleeping heavily.
When we turned our backs upon our own fire, the dark-
ness of the night was blacker and more impenetrable than
ever. In fact, I involuntarily glanced up at the stars, to
convince myself whether or no I had actually lost my
eyesight. Hour after hour we dragged ourselves along
towards the east, still seeking that faithless beacon ; our
animals, however, plodded pertinaciously along, as though
they smelt grass.
All at once up shot the distant fire again. Soon after-
wards we passed the first belt of bushes, a sure sign that
water was not very far off ; consequently, we must be quite
close to the springs. The men shouted repeatedly at the
full pitch of their lungs, but their voices died away unheard
in the night. Down, down sank once more the treacherous
fire, and then disappeared. Surely there must be witchery
at work, or was it a will-o’-the-wisp that was deceiving us,
flitting on before us whenever we approached ?
The men’s conversation died away and with it our lately-
revived hopes. Our pace became fearfully slow ; in fact,
we were no longer marching—we were only crawling at a
snail’s pace. When at last I literally could not take another
step, I gave the order to stop, to everybody’s intense satis-
faction. We had been marching for twelve hours con-
tinuously and had had more than enough of it.
Cherdon hastened to make up a fire. The caravan cut
a sorry figure in the faint illumination. The men dropped
on the ground in the very places where they halted.
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