Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/426

 418 Khartûm, the Mahdi, Fashoda, their liberation from Gebhr's hands; afterwards the further journey after Linde's death until reaching Lake Bassa-Narok and that place at which they were passing the night. "So much did we undergo, so much have we suffered," he soliloquized, "so often did it seem that all was lost and that there was no help; nevertheless, God aided me and I always found help. Why, it is impossible that, after having passed over such roads and gone through so many terrible dangers, we should perish upon this the last journey. Now we have yet a little water and this region—why, it is not a Sahara, for if it were the people would know about it."

But hope was mainly sustained in him by this, that on the southeast he espied through the field-glass some kind of misty outlines as though of mountains. Perhaps they were hundreds of English miles away, perhaps more. But if they succeeded in reaching them, they would be saved, as mountains are seldom waterless. How much time that would consume was something he could not compute for it all depended upon the height of the mountains. Lofty peaks in such transparent atmosphere as that of Africa can be seen at an immeasurable distance; so it was necessary to find water before that time. Otherwise destruction threatened them.

"It is necessary," Stas repeated to himself.

The harsh breathing of the elephant, who exhaled from his lungs as best he could the burning heat, interrupted every little while the boy's meditations. But after a certain time it seemed to him that he heard some kind of sound, resembling groans, coming from the direction in which the water-bags lay covered in the grass for the night. As the groans were repeated several times, he rose to see what was happening and, walking towards the grass plot a few score paces distant from the tent, he