ishop of Gabon.]

Sleep, though it did not quench their thirst, at least permitted them
to forget it; so when night followed, the men, weary and exhausted with
the whole day's march, dropped as though lifeless, wherever they
stopped, and fell into deep slumber. Stas also fell asleep, but in his
soul he had too many worries and was disturbed too much to sleep
peacefully and long. After a few hours he awoke and began to meditate
on what was to come, and where he could secure water for Nell, and for
the whole caravan, together with the people and the animals. His
situation was hard and perhaps horrible, but the resourceful boy did
not yet yield to despair. He began to recall all the incidents, from
the time of their abduction from Fayum until that moment: the great
journey across the Sahara, the hurricane in the desert, the attempts to
escape, Khartum, the Mahdi, Fashoda, their liberation from Gebhr's
hands; afterwards the further journey after Linde's death until
reaching Lake Bassa-Narok and that place at which they were passing the
night. "So much did we undergo, so much have we suffered," he
soliloquized, "so often did it seem that all was lost and that there
was no help; nevertheless, God aided me and I always found help. Why,
it is impossible that, after having passed over such roads and gone
through so many terrible dangers, we should perish upon this the last
journey. Now we have yet a little water and this region--why, it is not
a Sahara, for if it were the people would know about it."

But hope was mainly sustained in him by this, that on the southeast he
espied through the field-glass some kind of misty outlines as though of
mountains. Perhaps they were hundreds of English miles away, perhaps
more. But if they succeeded in reaching them, they would be saved, as
mountains are seldom waterless. How much time that would consume was
something he could not compute for it all depended upon the height of
the mountains. Lofty peaks in such transparent atmosphere as that of
Africa can be seen at an immeasurable distance; so it was necessary to
find water before that time. Otherwise destruction threatened them.

"It is necessary," Stas repeated to himself.

The harsh breathing of the elephant, who exhaled from his lungs as best
he could the burning heat, interrupted every little while the boy's
meditations. But after a certain time it seemed to him that he heard
some kind of sound, resembling groans, coming from the di