sides it was hemmed in by gigantic dunes.

"Salt, master!" said Inyati. "I have seen such places before, but, wow! this is a big one! And this is not the pan I seek. No good to us, master; but is it not strange? Yonder in my land this salt is a precious thing; for a basketful, one can obtain a fat cow, for a sackful, two or more young wives! Here is salt enough to buy many wives, master; but none to gather it or for that matter, no wives to buy! . . . But water, master, is what we seek, and not salt water or t'samma. . . . We must cross, master; there on the other side I see thick bush in the dunes, there may be t'samma there, and the way across is easy. Come!"

He led the way down the steep slope, dragging his jaded animals after him. At the edge, where sand ended and salt began, lay many bones, bleached and white almost as the salt itself, and amongst them were the bones of men. Snorting and afraid, the animals stepped gingerly on the smooth, snow-like surface, which yielded but an inch or two to their tread, and was pleasantly cool to their hooves, parched and cracking from their long trek in the burning sand. Beneath the white surface was a moist black mud, and the liquid brine oozed quickly into the horses' footprints. Used as we were to the glare of the sun on the burning sand, here it was literally blinding, and long before we reached the farther side we were groping and stumbling like blind men. It was much wider, too, than it had first appeared, and we were utterly exhausted when at long length we reached the dunes again, and to our joy found bush, and a few t'samma, most of them old and hard, but still enough green ones to provide a scanty meal for the suffering animals. A respite it was, but a respite only, and well we knew that we must push on or return at once. Our water bags still held enough to keep us alive a day or two, but we must find water or t'samma for the horses soon, or it was evident they could not last. We threw ourselves down on the burning sand, with a blanket stretched over a tiny bush affording scant shade for our heads, and in spite of the roasting heat I slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.

I awoke to find Inyati afoot, and intent on adjusting the blanket to shade my face from the setting sun. I got up, aching and throbbing in every part of my body, and parched with a thirst that the lukewarm and already vile-tasting water from our skin bags did little to alleviate.

"Master," said Inyati, looking at me with concern, "take thou of the bitter powder (quinine); and sleep again. Before morning I will come back. For I must seek the pan I know of, where water may be found. This cursed salt pan I did not see when I crossed before: the pan I know is one of the others we saw the clouds rise from; which I know not? So I seek the nearest, and if water is there, by moonrise I will be here again. If not, and I must seek the farther one, then when the sun stands a span high I will be back. Nay, better that I should go alone; rest, master, and let the horses rest too, for if I find not the water, our path will be a hard one!"

He shouldered his Winchester, and strode off, all my arguments failing to persuade him to take a drop of our little remaining store of water. I watched him striding away through the dunes till he was lost to sight, then I turned to and made a fire and some food; for I felt weak and ill and my head was burning. Then I looked to the horses, hobbling them short in case they should stray though, poor brutes, they were too worn out to be likely to do anything of the kind. Then I gathered all the dry stumps and bush I could find, and made a fire, for lion and leopard spoor were very plentiful: moreover, a fire would help Inyati to find his way back. Later, as night fell, I lay down and tried to sleep; but exhausted as I was I could not rest. My thoughts were with Inyati. Would he find the pan and water? And if not, what would happen? The horses would scarce be able to struggle back to the nearest t'samma we had left, and in any case, to go back, beaten! No, if Inyati gave any hope at all, I would push on as long as life lasted.

So I lay and mused by the flickering fire, listening for the occasional yelp of a jackal, or the horrible laughter of a hyena.

Sleep I could not; the horses too were restless, snorting and fidgeting as they bunched close together, only a yard or two from where I lay.

I wondered if lions were prowling near, but could hear or see nothing. The air was hot and stifling, and there was none of the pleasant coolness usual to even these summer nights in the desert, and on climbing to the crest of the dune to look vainly towards where Inyati must be wandering, I saw that the sky in that direction was heavy with clouds; and even as I looked, flash after flash of lightning rent their heavy pall.

"Thank God!" was my first thought, "there will be rain there, and if the pans lie there, we shall find water."

I stood and watched for some time, and saw that the storm was traveling towards me, but it was still far distant, and I returned to the fire and again tried to sleep, for the moon would not rise for several hours, and Inyati had said he could not be back before then.

And this time I slept, a heavy sleep full of distorted dreams.

At length I awoke with a start, just as a gust of wind caught the fire and scattered the embers in all directions. Another and another followed, each more violent than the preceding one, then came a terrific blast that whirled the blanket I had been lying on away into the night: the last firebrand was snatched up as though by an unseen hand, and borne high over the dune, and before I had time to realize what was happening I was fighting for my life in the howling darkness of a terrific sandstorm. The wind was demoniacal; it apparently blew from all quarters at once, in short, sharp, incessant gusts, lifting and whirling away everything that came in its path, shifting the loose sand in such masses, and hurling it with such force that to stand still would have meant being buried. Luckily the scanty vegetation where we had rested had somewhat bound the sand, but in a few minutes of the awful struggle I realized that unless I could reach some firmer spot I must be overwhelmed. A momentary lull showed me the horses half buried, and apparently too stupefied to do more than stand passively awaiting their fate.

The salt pan! That was my only chance: there, at least, the very ground would not dissolve beneath my feet, as it was doing here! And I must make for it at once, for the whirling cataclysm of sand was again closing upon me. Seizing the horses I cut their hobbles, and throwing one of the packs across the nearest I coaxed and dragged him from the sand. I had my rifle, and I had no time for anything else, but made off in the direction of the pan, barely fifty yards away; but so terrible was now the force of the wind that I was hard put to it to reach it, and thankful indeed was I when a brief lull showed me the wide expanse of white spreading dimly before me in the murk.

Even here the ever-recurring whirlwinds bore huge volumes of sand eddying across the pan, and at times I feared I should be choked and overwhelmed, but as I gradually neared the centre the air grew clearer, and I knew that for the time, at least, I was safe.

The horses had struggled out after their leader, and stood trembling near me; luckily I had left them saddled and bridled in anticipation of an early start, but the other pack was lying there in the dunes. And thus I awaited the abatement of the storm, a prey to the most awful suspense.

Inyati! There in the distant dunes if the storm had caught him in their midst he must be dead, overwhelmed and buried in the chaos of sand! Or had he been able to gain one of the pans first; and would the abatement of the storm see him