made a considerable hollow, and breaking down the brittle "gar" bushes he roofed it over, throwing a whole pile of other bushes on top till it was light-proof enough to at least break some of the sun's glare.

And into this we crawled, and stewed till evening brought us some little respite.

Meanwhile we had discussed our chances of getting across.

"Three days, at least, my master, it will take the horses; and if we find no t'samma they will die. It is drier than when I crossed. But if we go not east, but turn somewhat to the south, there is a pan. It is two days only but who knows if there is water there? Still, mayhap, that is the better path." That night we had to wait late before trekking, as the moon was waning, and in the hideous jumble of dunes before us, we feared to trust solely to the stars. We were glad to rest too, and let our horses rest and take their fill of the last t'samma they were likely to get.

I lay smoking in the dark, waiting for the moon to rise, and listening to the "crunch, crunch" of the horses still steadily feeding, when a low call from Inyati made me spring to my feet, He had climbed to the top of the highest dune, and at his second call I ploughed my way up through the loose sand till I stood beside him. He was pointing away to the south-east.

"A fire, master," he said; "there are men there; that must be our way, for there must there be t'samma, or water!"

Sure enough a tiny fire was flickering far away, and apparently on the far horizon, though it is almost impossible to judge of the distance of a fire by night.

At any rate, it certainly seemed better for us to try to make our way to it, and without waiting longer for the moon we saddled up and started our floundering way across the labyrinth of dunes in its direction.

All night long we followed the faint gleam, which faded and vanished as morning found us, well-nigh exhausted, in the midst of the wilderness of bare sand.

But, though I could see nothing, Inyati's keen eyes made out a thin wreath of smoke from a prominent dune still some distance away; and in spite of our fatigue we struggled on, till, with the sun glaring down full upon us, we stood on the flank of the huge slope of sand. Near its crest, a few dry and blackened stumps and withered bushes showed where a little vegetation had once existed, and from near them rose the smoke. There was, however, no sign of life; and not a sound broke the awful silence of the desert, as we breasted the rise. Then a vulture flapped lazily up in front of us, and another and another and a tiger- wolf (hyena) lurched its gorged and ungainly carcass down the farther slope.

The fire was alive, but those that had built and lit it were dead . . . of thirst.

They lay there, all that the vultures had left, a fearsome sight; and their swollen and protruding tongues told the tale as plainly as though they had spoken. Yellow bodies, emaciated, but the bodies of what had once been a splendidly proportioned man and woman no Bushmen these!

"They are of my folk," said Inyati gravely, as he stooped to examine them, "mayhap they too have fled from the priests? . . And they have crossed the desert the way we would go and are dead of thirst!"

CHAPTER III THE SAND-STORM

We scraped a hasty grave in the sand for the poor remains, and stood gazing silently across the dunes in the direction that the fresh spoors showed the two poor creatures had come from; stood there regardless of our fatigue, and of the blazing heat, of everything in fact but the grim tragedy before us, and the terrible significance it bore for us, who would follow the same path.

"We must rest, and eat," at length said Inyati, "so too must the horses, or they may die before there is need."

We stripped the loads from the poor brutes, and divided the bags of t'samma we had piled upon them, and soon they were munching away contentedly, whilst we rigged up some sort of shelter and lay and panted till the evening.

Then, and then only, did we discuss what we were next to do. "Master," at length said Inyati, "think, and think well. To go back is still easy, to go forward may well be that we die even as these two have died!"

"The desert is drier than when I struggled through it, more dead than alive, by the path these people came by and that way it would be madness to try! South, we might find another path, but it will be a longer one and . . . my master can still return. And the stone that my master can take and I will go on and bring him more, if he will but return to the camp and there await me. . . . And if I come not in two moons, I shall be dead. . . ."

He held out the blue diamond as he spoke; but the offer, genuine as it undoubtedly was, acted as a taunt to me, and I bade him sternly put back the stone, and talk not to me of returning.

"Thou sayest that the desert is but beginning," I told him. "Am I then a weakling, to run back like a whipped hound, at the sight of a dead man? Nay, I will return with the stones I seek, or not at all!"

Inyati nodded his head sagely as he sucked at his cherished pipe.

"Aye! Aye!" he said softly. "Said I not that the stones were magic? Sad, even as a sick cow, was my master, till I showed him the stone, and now he is even again as a young bull!"

If he had meant to stir me from the apathy that the desert had brought upon me, he certainly succeeded, for his complimentary comparison of me to a sick cow again set me laughing! It was the first time I had laughed for days, and it did me good.

"Yes, we must go south," said Inyati, "but not far. Only half a march, and then we will turn again east. Thus shall we find the pans."

That night we did not wait for the moon, but saddled our still jaded nags before it was well dark, and walking most of the way to rest them, we set our faces towards the Southern Cross. Half way through the night we halted, and resting for a while, again pushed on, but this time due east. Dawn found us eagerly looking round for a change in the landscape if a featureless chaos of tumbled sand is worthy of such a name? but I, at any rate, could see nothing.

Not so Inyati; his eyes were better than my field-glasses.

"Look, master!" he said, as the sun rose, "there, and there, and there! little low clouds, just rising from those three places and they won't last long! They are pans, master, and it is mist that rises from them. There is moisture there may be water there."

"And food for the horses?" I asked him; for our poor brutes were in an awful state, and we had nothing to give them.

"That may well be," he said, "not on the pans, but near them. And, master, we must struggle on, and find out; for they cannot fast another day, and trek another night, without either food or drink."

The rising sun rapidly dispersed the little clouds that Inyati had pointed out, but we kept on in their direction, though the sand was now burning hot and the poor animals were suffering frightfully.

Now a few scattered bushes and tufts of bone-dry "toa" grass began to show in the hollows between the dunes, and at length, on breasting an unusually high one a veritable mountain of sand, three or four hundred feet in height a new and marvelous scene stretched before me.

Abruptly from the foot of the steep dune-slope stretched a vast, glittering expanse of the purest white; to all appearance a snow- covered lake, spotless and dazzling in the brilliant sunshine. It was almost a perfect circle in shape and several miles in diameter, and on all