tra.

"'Well, they journeyed for two days, and then there came up a
wind-storm, hot and dry, filling the air with sand and dust, so that
they could not see where they were going, and the natives said they
ought all to go back, for it was dangerous to try to keep on in such a
storm. But our two men would not give up so soon, and they made a camp
in a sheltered place, and determined to press on in the morning, when
they might expect the storm to be over. But in the morning they found
that every native had deserted them. The wind had gone down, and the
fellows must have started back before it was light. Then Shirley and
Burke did not know what to do. They believed that they were nearer the
coast than the mountains, and as they had plenty of provisions,--for the
natives had left them nearly everything,--they thought they would try to
push on, for a while at least.

"'There was a bit of rising ground to the east, and they thought if they
could get on the top of that they might get a sight of the ocean, and
then discover how far away it was. They reached the top of the rising
ground, and they did not see the ocean, but a little ahead of them, in a
smooth stretch of sand, was something which amazed them a good deal more
than if it had been the sea. It was a pair of shoes sticking up out of
the sand. They were an old pair, and appeared to have legs to them. They
went to the spot, and found that these shoes belonged to a man who was
entirely covered by sand, with the exception of his feet, and dead, of
course. They got the sand off of him, and found he was a white man, in
sailor's clothes. First they had thought he might be one of our party,
but they soon perceived that this was a mistake, for they had never seen
the man before. He was dried up until he was nothing but a skeleton with
skin over it, but they could have recognized him if they had known him
before. From what they had heard of the rainless climate of the Peruvian
coast, and the way it had of drying up dead animals of all sorts, they
imagined that this man might have been there for years. He was lying on
his back, with his arms folded around a bundle, and when they tried to
move this bundle, they found it was very heavy. It was something wrapped
up in a blanket and tied with a cord, and when they opened the bundle,
they were pretty nearly struck dumb; for they saw it held, as Shirley
expressed it, about a peck of little hunks of gold.

"'They were utterly astounded