ay by sea, began to shape
themselves in the mind. The nandu could not go on forever; before reaching
the sea he must either alter his course or stop, and if he stopped only a
few minutes and so gave me a chance of steadying myself I thought that, by
the help of my teeth, I might untie one of the cords which the movements
of the bird and my own efforts had already slightly loosened, and once my
arms were freed the rest would be easy.

An hour (as nearly as I could judge) after leaving the Cordillera I
sighted the Pacific--a broad expanse of blue water shining in the sun and
stretching to the horizon. How eagerly I looked for a sail, a boat, the
hut of some solitary fisherman, or any other sign of human presence! But I
saw nothing save water and sand; the ocean was as lonesome as the desert.
There was no salvation thitherward.

Though my hope had been vague, my disappointment was bitter; but a few
minutes later all thought of it was swallowed up in a new fear. The sea
was below me, and as the ground had ceased to fall I knew that the desert
must end on that side in a line of lofty cliffs. I knew, also, that nandus
are among the most stupid of bipeds, and it was just conceivable that the
man-killer, not perceiving his danger until too late, might go over the
cliffs into the sea.

The hoarse roar of the waves as they surge against the rocks, at first
faint, grows every moment louder and deeper. I see distinctly the land's
end, and mentally calculate from the angle it makes with the ocean, the
height of the cliffs.

Still the man-killer strides on, as straight as an arrow and as resolutely
as if a hundred miles of desert, instead of ten thousand miles of water,
stretched before him. Three minutes more and--I set my teeth hard and draw
a deep breath. At any rate, it will be an easier end than burning, or
dying of thirst--Another moment and--

But now the nandu, seeing that he will soon be treading the air, makes a
desperate effort to stop short, in which failing he wheels half round,
barely in time to save his life and mine, and then courses madly along the
brink for miles, as if unable to tear himself away, keeping me in a state
of continual fear, for a single slip, or an accidental swerve to the
right, and we should have fallen headlong down the rocks, against which
the waves are beating.

As night closes in he gradually--to my inexpressible relief--draws inland,
making in a direction that must sooner or later take us