Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/168

 Somehow, that strange thing termed the second wind came to O'Rourke, at a time when he felt himself in his last extremity, when his lungs ached and burned, when his legs were moving only automatically in obedience to his iron will. This happened when they had put a distance of something like four miles between them and the scene of the tragedy.

He revived a trifle; his head that had been hanging erected itself, he stared out toward El Kebr that he could not have seen had it been within sight, his eyeballs starting from their sockets. For a brief space the strain grew lighter.

He mended his stride, hanging less like a dead weight upon the loop; for a little while it swung loosely upon his arm.

After them came the chase, marked by a pillar of yellow dust raised by the flying hoofs of the camels; it seemed that they gained—the pursuers—for the cloud grew nearer and nearer, larger and larger, and the yells sounded more loudly.

But of these the fugitives were unaware; they had neither thought nor desire to look back. It was nothing to them whether the chase were near or far; there was naught thought of, save to maintain the going, no matter how.

Again the Irishman's head sank; his chin fell and waggled loosely upon his chest; the sun was claiming him for its prey. His mouth gaped open, his tongue protruded, dry as a bone, white-caked with the sand and dust that flew about him in minute particles. His nostrils were distended to their utmost, straining in the dry and superheated air.

He lost the sense of motion in his legs,—nearly lost consciousness. For some time the desert had been rising and falling; now it reeled dizzily about him, swirling like a maelstrom in a blood-red flood. His heart labored mightily, beating with trip-hammer blows upon the walls of his chest;