Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/58

 foot. We spread the canvas of our tent right over them and us, and our heads well protected with cloaks and rugs, we could but wait and trust our lives to a higher keeping.

The experience was a terrible one, one that made me forget my ennui and Hugh his visionary dreams. The stunning blows from sand and shingle, the darkness, the fright of the camels, the suffocation, all helped to make me long for that monotony of calm desert sand which I had railed against for so many days.

I think I must have been hit on the back of the head by some sharp loose stone, for I can remember the sensation of a terrible blow and then nothing more. When I recovered consciousness it was with the sensation of brandy trickling down my throat, of an even blue sky above me, and of Hugh's cheerful voice asking me how I felt.

"Just like one gigantic and collapsed sand dune," I murmured.

Indeed it seemed to me as if it ought to be impossible for any one human being to hold as much sand about their person as I did. It was absolutely everywhere: in my mouth, in my eyes, in the brandy which I drank, at the back of my throat, in my shoes, and under the roots of my hair.

"How are the camels?" I asked.

"Badly, I am afraid. One of them refuses to stir."

"Not our milcher, I hope?"

"Unfortunately, yes!"

This was bad business, for the milk had been very delicious and nourishing, and the water, which had been stored in goats' skins, was but a very unpalatable substitute.

The question of going back the way we came was thus finally settled: we had been on the road since