ing behind ridges of sand, grey and cold and
black-browed, with an insufficient grass. I feel again the clear, cold
chill of dawn, and hear the distant barking of a dog. I find myself
asking again, "What shall we do now?" and trying to scheme with brain
tired beyond measure.

At first my uncle occupied my attention. He was shivering a good
deal, and it was all I could do to resist my desire to get him into a
comfortable bed at once. But I wanted to appear plausibly in this part
of the world. I felt it would not do to turn up anywhere at dawn and
rest, it would be altogether too conspicuous; we must rest until the day
was well advanced, and then appear as road-stained pedestrians seeking
a meal. I gave him most of what was left of the biscuits, emptied our
flasks, and advised him to sleep, but at first it was too cold, albeit I
wrapped the big fur rug around him.

I was struck now by the flushed weariness of his face, and the look of
age the grey stubble on his unshaved chin gave him. He sat crumpled up,
shivering and coughing, munching reluctantly, but drinking eagerly, and
whimpering a little, a dreadfully pitiful figure to me. But we had to go
through with it; there was no way out for us.

Presently the sun rose over the pines, and the sand grew rapidly warm.
My uncle had done eating, and sat with his wrists resting on his knees,
the most hopeless looking of lost souls.

"I'm ill," he said, "I'm damnably ill! I can feel it in my skin!"

Then--it was horrible to me--he cried, "I ought to be in bed; I ought to
be in bed... instead of flying about," and suddenly he burst into tears.

I stood up. "Go to sleep, man!" I said, and took the rug from him, and
spread it out and rolled him up in it.

"It's all very well," he protested; "I'm not young enough--"

"Lift up your head," I interrupted, and put his knapsack under it.

"They'll catch us here, just as much as in an inn," he grumbled and then
lay still.

Presently, after a long time, I perceived he was asleep. His breath came
with peculiar wheezings, and every now and again he would cough. I was
very stiff and tired myself, and perhaps I dozed. I don't remember. I
remember only sitting, as it seemed, nigh interminably, beside him, too
weary even to think in that sandy desolation.

No one came near us; no creature, not even a dog. I roused myself at
last, feeling that it was vain to seek to seem other than abnormal,
and with an effort that was like lifting a sk