the sound of the firing, or else it
had ceased. And though he knew well enough that this was no good sign,
the silence was less harrowing. He resumed his weary march till the sun
reached its full power. There were some stunted bushes a little out of
his track, and he made for them, hoping to find water. In this he was
disappointed; so taking a sparing pull at his water-bottle, he crawled
under one of them, seeking its shade. There was a slight rustle, and a
snake rose on its tail, and darted at him with its forked tongue, but,
just missing him, glided away.

Harry then looked more carefully, but there was no other, and he rested.
Another escape! Did he, then, bear a charmed life? After about an
hour, he grew restless. The sand in that part lay in high ridges or
dunes, some of them at least a hundred feet high, and he hoped that on
surmounting the next beyond him he would come in sight of the town, or
at least of some oasis, with water and human habitations, and with each
recurring disappointment he became only the more eager to reach the
sand-hill beyond. But he was becoming very faint, and the wound in his
head throbbed to agony. He was at last so "_beat_" that he was on the
point of letting himself sink down on the sand to struggle no more, when
suddenly there, straight before him, lay the object of his desires!
Surely not a mile off, but say a mile and a half, rose towers,
fortifications, minarets, palm-trees, and, most grateful sight, all this
was reflected in a broad clear sheet of water.

"El Obeid!" he cried aloud, forgetting everything else in the joy of the
moment.

He had never heard that it was on a lake, and thus his wildest
expectations were surpassed.

No need now to torture himself by refraining from his water-bottle. He
seized and drained it, and then falling on his knees he thanked Heaven
for this deliverance. For though, when considered calmly at a distance,
he had recognised the perils which would attend his adventure in
entering the place, which was now the head-quarters of the Mahdi and his
fanatics, they seemed as nothing compared with the immediate prospect of
perishing of want and thirst, alone, in the desert. Rising to his feet
again he hurried onwards, but the place was much farther off than it had
first seemed, for when he had gone on for a full twenty minutes, with
speed inspired by hope, he seemed to be no whit nearer.

On again, plunging through the loose sand, reeling, st