Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/565

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night my companion came up. He had seen my fire. He did not speak. I did not speak. We had no interest to talk. It was impossible to do so, for our mouths were as dry as our skins.

"That night we walked on for several hours, and so on till the sun grew hot on the 4th of May, when we again lay down naked on the sand. On the night of May 4th we advanced crawling on all fours and resting every ten yards or so. I meant to save my life. I felt all along that my life could not be thrown away like that. We came to three desert poplars on a patch of soil where there was no sand. We tried to dig, but we were too weak and the frozen ground was too hard. We barely dug to a depth of six inches. Then we fell on our faces and clawed up the earth with our fingers. But we could not dig deep. So we abandoned the hope of finding water there and lit a fire, in the hope that Islam-Bai, the man who had stayed behind with the camels, might chance to see it and follow on. It happened so, but I only knew it later. On the 5th we went on, east. We were bitterly disappointed, for the poplars had given us hope, and we had to cross a broad belt of sterile sand.

"At last we saw a black line on the horizon, very dark and very thin, and we understood that it must be the forests of Khotan-Darya. We reached the forest by the time the sun grew hot. It was very deep and very dense, a black forest of very old trees. We saw the tracks of wild beasts. All that day we lay naked in the shade of the trees. There was no sign of water anywhere. In the evening I dressed, and told Kasim to arise. He could not move. He was going mad. He looked fearful, lying flat on his back, with his arms stretched out, naked, with staring eyes and open mouth. I went on. The forest was very dense and the night black, black. I had eaten nothing for ten days; I had drunk nothing for nine. I crossed the forest crawling on all fours, tottering from tree to tree. I carried the haft of the spade as a crutch. At last I came to an open place. The forest ended like a devastated plain. This was a river-bed, the bed of the Khotan-Darya. It was quite dry. There was not a drop of water. I understood that this was the bad season for water. The river-beds are dry in the spring, for the snow which feeds them has not yet melted on the mountains.

"I went on. I meant to live. I would find water. I was very weak, but I crawled on all fours, and at last I crossed the river-bed. It was three kilometers wide. Then,