ur 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 th