ok one apiece, and some pistols. We
took a small box, too, because it was so handsome and inlaid so fine; and
then we wanted to bury the people; but there warn't no way to do it that
we could think of, and nothing to do it with but sand, and that would
blow away again, of course.

Then we mounted high and sailed away, and pretty soon that black spot on
the sand was out of sight, and we wouldn't ever see them poor people
again in this world. We wondered, and reasoned, and tried to guess how
they come to be there, and how it all happened to them, but we couldn't
make it out. First we thought maybe they got lost, and wandered around
and about till their food and water give out and they starved to death;
but Tom said no wild animals nor vultures hadn't meddled with them, and
so that guess wouldn't do. So at last we give it up, and judged we
wouldn't think about it no more, because it made us low-spirited.

Then we opened the box, and it had gems and jewels in it, quite a pile,
and some little veils of the kind the dead women had on, with fringes
made out of curious gold money that we warn't acquainted with. We
wondered if we better go and try to find them again and give it back; but
Tom thought it over and said no, it was a country that was full of
robbers, and they would come and steal it; and then the sin would be on
us for putting the temptation in their way. So we went on; but I wished
we had took all they had, so there wouldn't 'a' been no temptation at all
left.

We had had two hours of that blazing weather down there, and was dreadful
thirsty when we got aboard again. We went straight for the water, but it
was spoiled and bitter, besides being pretty near hot enough to scald
your mouth. We couldn't drink it. It was Mississippi river water, the
best in the world, and we stirred up the mud in it to see if that would
help, but no, the mud wasn't any better than the water. Well, we hadn't
been so very, very thirsty before, while we was interested in the lost
people, but we was now, and as soon as we found we couldn't have a drink,
we was more than thirty-five times as thirsty as we was a quarter of a
minute before. Why, in a little while we wanted to hold our mouths open
and pant like a dog.

Tom said to keep a sharp lookout, all around, everywheres, because we'd
got to find an oasis or there warn't no telling what would happen. So we
done it. We kept the glasses gliding around all the time, till our arms
got so tire