ed, and overwhelmed us, Carfax did not turn up in camp,
and though we searched all the following day we found no trace of him
not a vestige; for one of the worst things about the dunes is that when
the wind is blowing the spoor is filled up almost immediately with
drifting sand; though peculiarly enough a day or two later the spoor
will show again, when the light sand has again been blown out. He had
only a small water-bottle with him, the heat was like Hades itself, and
we all thought he was dead.

"But on the second night of his absence I shall never forget it the
wind had gone down completely, and the long stretches of white dunes
lay clear and bright in the white moonlight. The other fellows lay
asleep on the sand, exhausted, for we had had a terrible day, but I
couldn't sleep I never can in bright moonlight.' And after tossing
around for some time I got up, lit a pipe, and walked over to the
water-barrel to get a drink. Poor Carfax was still in my mind, and I
stood thinking of him and gazing out in the direction in which he had
gone, straining my eyes in the forlorn hope of seeing something moving;
but the dead silver-white of the sand dunes was unbroken by a single
speck.

"I stood thus for some time, and was turning once more towards the
others when a faint movement in the vague distance caught my eye. Yes!
something or some one was crossing the ridge of a big dune in my
direction! A jackal maybe! No, it was too big for that; the faint form
was certainly that of a man or were there two? I didn't wait longer,
but, running back and grabbing a water bottle, I started off at a run
towards whoever it was.

"Moonlight is puzzling sometimes, and I could scarcely make out if
there was one figure or two: one seemed to follow the other at a little
distance. But as I got nearer I could see it was Carfax alone. 'Carfax!
Carfax!' I called out, 'thank God you're alive we'd given you up!' He
made no answer, but came on slowly and falteringly, turning repeatedly
as though to gaze behind. Now I saw that he was in the last stage of
exhaustion: his face was drawn and ghastly, and his cracked and swollen
lips were moving rapidly in broken, incoherent words; his sufferings
had plainly driven him out of his mind. He snatched at the water bottle
and drained it at a draught; then, clutching me by the arm, he pointed
back across the dunes.

"'There! there! see! he follows me always, since I found the diamonds!
Look! look!'

"As he