Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/351

 to their gloomy thoughts, overcome by the tremendous heat.

Towards four o'clock Joe signaled some objects standing in relief against the sandy background, and soon he was able to announce that two palm-trees were visible at a short distance.

"Palms!" cried Ferguson; "then there is a fountain or a well there." He took up a telescope to assure himself that Joe had not made a mistake.

"At last!" he cried. "Water, water! we are saved; for although we are going very slowly, we are moving, and we must get there."

"Well, sir," said Joe, "suppose we have a drink in the meantime—the heat is stifling."

"By all means, my lad."

No one had any objections, and a pint of water was distributed. The store was now reduced to three and a half pints.

"Ah! that does one good," cried Joe. "Better than all Barclay and Perkins's brewings."

"Such are the advantages of privation," said the doctor.

"They are small, taking them altogether," said Kennedy; "and though I should never be allowed again to experience the pleasure of drinking a glass of water, I would consent to lose the pleasure as the condition of never being deprived of the substance."

At six o'clock the "Victoria" was floating about the palms. They were two miserably small, dried-up trees—two specters of trees, without foliage—more dead than alive. Ferguson contemplated them with fear in his heart.

At their base the broken stones of a well were discernible, but these stones, baked by the sun, seemed little more than dust. There was not the faintest trace of water. Ferguson's heart sank within him, and he was beginning to share the terrors of his companions, when their exclamations attracted his attention.

Stretching out of sight to the westward was extended a long line of whitened bones. Fragments of skeletons surrounded the fountain; evidently a caravan had reached thus far, marking its passage by a trail of bones! The weakest had fallen, one after the other, upon the distant sand; the stronger ones had struggled on to the desired