nt
recollection of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandishing my
hog-spear at the great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my mad
gallop; and of shout-log challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they
whizzed past. Once or twice I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic's
neck, and literally hung on by my spurs--as the marks next morning
showed.

The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed, over what seemed
to be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the ground
rose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw the
waters of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic
blundered heavily on his nose, and we rolled together down some unseen
slope.

I must have lost consciousness, for when I recovered I was lying on
my stomach in a heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to
break dimly over the edge of the slope down which I had fallen. As the
light grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horseshoe-shaped
crater of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of the
Sutlej. My fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of a
slight dizziness in the head, I felt no had effects from the fall over
night.

Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal
exhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite
polo one was much knocked about, and had been twisted under his belly.
It took me some time to put him to rights, and in the meantime I had
ample opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly
dropped.

At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length:
inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be of
material assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows.

Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand
with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope,
I fancy, must have been about 65 degrees.) This crater enclosed a level
piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part,
with a crude well in the centre. Round the bottom of the crater,
about three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of
eighty-three semi-circular ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, all
about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it
was carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over
the mouth a wooden drip-board