d we have had none. But you might take it all if it would save
you, only it wouldn't. We are lost in the desert, and must be sparing.
If you drank everything now, in a few hours you would be thirsty again
and die."

He thought awhile, then looked up and said:

"Beg pardon--I understand. I'm the selfish brute. But there's a good lot
of water there; let's each have a drink; we can't move unless we do."

So we drank, measuring out the water in a little india-rubber cup which
we had with us. It held about as much as a port wine glass, and each of
us drank, or rather slowly sipped, three cupfuls; we who felt as though
we could have swallowed a gallon apiece, and asked for more. Small as
was the allowance, it worked wonders in us; we were men again.

We stood up and looked about us, but the great storm had changed
everything. Where there had been sand-hills a hundred feet high,
now were plains and valleys; where there had been valleys appeared
sand-hills. Only the high ridge upon which we had lain was as before,
because it stood above the others and had a core of rock. We tried to
discover the direction of the oasis by the position of the sun, only to
be baffled, since our two watches had run down, and we did not know the
time of day or where the sun ought to be in the heavens. Also, in
that howling wilderness there was nothing to show us the points of the
compass.

Higgs, whose obstinacy remained unimpaired, whatever may have happened
to the rest of his vital forces, had one view of the matter, and Orme
another diametrically opposed to it. They even argued as to whether
the oasis lay to our right or to our left, for their poor heads were
so confused that they were scarcely capable of accurate thought or
observation. Meanwhile I sat down upon the sand and considered. Through
the haze I could see the points of what I thought must be the hills
whence the Zeus declared that the lions came, although of course, for
aught I knew, they might be other hills.

"Listen," I said; "if lions live upon those hills, there must be water
there. Let us try to reach them; perhaps we shall see the oasis as we
go."

Then began our dreadful march. The lion-skin that had saved our lives,
and was now baked hard as a board, we left behind, but the rifles we
took. All day long we dragged ourselves up and down steep sand-slopes,
pausing now again to drink a sip of water, and hoping always that from
the top of the next slope we should see a resc