bosom a heart, not of a hare but of a lion
or buffalo, will prefer to move forward, though in thirst and pain,
rather than to lie down and wait there for vultures or hyenas.

And saying this, he pointed with his hand at the vultures, a few of
which coursed already in an ill-omened circle above the caravan. After
these words the Wahimas, whom Stas commanded to rise, stood up almost
as one man, for, accustomed to the dreadful power of kings, they did
not dare to resist. But many of the Samburus, in view of the fact that
their king Faru remained at the lake, did not want to rise, and these
said among themselves: "Why should we go to meet death when she herself
will come to us?" In this manner the caravan proceeded, reduced almost
one-half, and it started from the outset in torture. For twenty-four
hours the people had not had a drop of water or any other fluid in
their mouths. Even in a cooler climate this, at labor, would have been
an unendurable suffering; and how much more so in this blazing African
furnace in which even those who drink copiously perspire the water so
quickly that almost at the same moment they can wipe it off their skin
with their hands. It was also to be foreseen that many of the men would
drop on the way from exhaustion and sunstroke. Stas protected Nell as
best he could from the sun and did not permit her to lean for even a
moment out of the palanquin, whose little roof he covered with a piece
of white percale in order to make it double. With the rest of the
water, which he still had in the rubber bottle, he prepared a strong
tea for her and handed it to her when cooled off, without any sugar,
for sweets increase thirst. The little girl urged him with tears to
drink also; so he placed to his lips the bottle in which there remained
scarcely a few thimblefuls of water, and, moving his throat, pretended
that he drank it. At the moment when he felt the moisture on his lips
it seemed to him that his breast and stomach were aflame and that if he
did not quench that flame he would drop dead. Before his eyes red spots
began to flit, and in his jaws he felt a terrible pain, as if some one
stuck a thousand pins in them. His hands shook so that he almost spilt
these last drops. Nevertheless, he caught only two or three in his
mouth with his tongue; the rest he saved for Nell.

A day of torture and toil again passed, after which, fortunately, a
cooler night came. But the following morning the intense heat beca