f the blankets over bushes to
keep off the sun-glare. But there was not much rest in the gasping heat
and at last Marcella stood up, stretching her arms which the pack on her
back was making stiff.

"I wonder if it would matter if I took all my things off?" she began
reflectively. Then she gasped out: "Why Louis, where are the five
trees?"

He sprang to his feet, staring about in bewilderment. The sun was above
their heads, red and leaden; all round stretched the scorched scrub; the
creek lay to their right but the five trees had vanished, swallowed up
in a thick, dun-coloured fog.

"Lord, we're in for a dust-storm, old lady!"

"Will it hurt us?"

He dilated on the horrors of dust-storms, and how they buried people and
choked the water-holes. It grew dark, not a breath of wind stirred the
scrub, not a bird moved or twittered in the few trees fringing the
creek.

"It may pass us by," said Louis. "They're often very localized. But if
it gets us, be sure not to speak, or your mouth will be full of dust,
and keep your eyes shut tight."

They plodded on. Once Marcella started violently as a parakeet flew by
with a brilliant flash of pink and green wings and a screaming cry. They
found it difficult to breathe. It seemed as though all the air had been
sucked up behind the advancing wall of dust and sand. One moment they
were walking in clear, though breathless air; the next the storm was
upon them, stinging and blinding and burning as the particles of dust
were hurled with enormous velocity by the wind.

Marcella gave a little cry of fear, and in the process got her mouth
filled with dust as Louis had prophesied. Groping out blindly she found
his hand, and they clung together. She would have given anything to be
able to speak, for the horror of the ancient doom of Lashnagar rose up
all round her and gripped her. But for more than an hour they battled in
silence, unable to go either backwards or forwards. When finally the
storm passed over, leaving them with parched throats and red-rimmed,
aching eyes and blistered skin, it was dusk--the swift dusk of the
sub-tropics.

Marcella wanted to stay and wash the dust away in the creek; Louis,
remembering the food shortage, insisted on pushing on. But when darkness
fell they were going blindly in the direction they guessed to be right
for they could see nothing of the five trees. Louis got depressed.
Marcella felt tired enough to be depressed too, but had to keep his
spiri