The chief difficulty in reconciling this belief with the actual
occurrence was the odd behaviour of the animal. Why had it gone up the
gorge, apparently _parenti passu_, to come tumbling down again in such a
confused fashion? Why was it still kicking and stumbling about at the
bottom of the ravine--for such did the sounds proclaim it to be doing?

No answer could be given to either of these questions; and none was
given, until day dawned over the sand-hills. This was soon after; and
along with the morning light had come the cessation of the simoom.

Then saw the castaways that creature that had so abruptly awakened them
from their slumbers, and, by so doing, perhaps, saved their lives. They
saw it recumbent at the bottom of the gorge, where they had so uneasily
passed the night.

It proved to be, what, from the slight glimpse they got of it, they were
inclined to believe, an animal, and a quadruped; and if it had presented
an uncouth appearance, as it stepped over them in the darkness, not less
so did it appear as they now beheld it under the light of day.

It was an animal of very large size, in height far exceeding a horse,
but of such a grotesque shape as to be easily recognisable by any one
who had ever glanced into a picture book of quadrupeds. The long
craning neck, with an almost earless head and gibbous profile; the great
straggling limbs, callous at the knees, and ending in broad,
wide-splitting hoofs; the slender hindquarters, and tiny tufted tail,
both ludicrously disproportioned, the tumid, misshapen trunk; but, above
all, the huge hunch rising above the shoulders, at once proclaimed the
creature to be a dromedary.

"Och! it's only a kaymal!" cried Old Bill, as soon as the daylight
enabled him to get a fair view of the animal. "What on hearth is it
doin' ere?"

"Sure enough," suggested Terence, "it was this beast that stepped over
us while we were asleep! It almost squeezed the breath out of me, for
it set its hoof right upon the pit of my stomach."

"The same with me," said Colin. "It sunk me down nearly a foot into the
sand. Oh, we have reason to be thankful there was that drift-sand over
our bodies at the time. If not, the great brute might have crushed us
to death."

There was some truth in Colin's observation; but for the covering of
sand, which acted as a cushion, and also from that which formed their
couch yielding underneath them, the foot of the great quadruped might
have caused