He would have continued, but his companion sternly rebuked him by casting at him the words with which he had himself been silenced. After that not a word was spoken for fully ten minutes, and the camel team staggered blindly on, floundering through intervening salt wreaths like ships in a heavy sea. The lake appeared to be nearly six miles in length, which meant that at least two hours would be spent in the crossing, for their rate of travel seldom exceeded three miles an hour, and was more often considerably less. In that time, if each man satisfied his craving for water from their very limited store, there would be but little left, and by Bob's calculations they were yet about thirty miles from the location of Fortunate Spring. But though each of the little party suffered severely, not one of them made other than jocular mention of his longing, and Mackay felt proud of the fortitude and reserve they displayed. He was especially concerned for Bob and Jack, for they, not having been hardened to such experiences, must have felt the influence of their salt bath most keenly; but if they were in any way incommoded they showed no sign. Bob walked by Mackay's side, talking at intervals concerning the probable geological history of interior Australia—a subject of endless interest to him. Jack and the Shadow strode at Misery's head, for now Fireworks needed no guiding hand at his nose-rope, but followed submissively in the rear of Repentance, and from snatches of their conversation, which floated to Mackay's ears, he gathered that Jack was giving his Australian comrade a description of the snows and frosts of the old country as a set-off to the blazing heat they were now experiencing.
"Yes, I reckon I'll go home with you," the Shadow was saying. "It must be a grand country, wi' no snakes nor centipedes nor other crawlers, an' nary muskittie to nibble you in your sleep."
Bob laughed. "I'm afraid the confined spaces at home would hardly suit him after this," he said. "I don't think I could stand the nature of things on the other side myself now."
"Because you're a born wanderer, Bob," smiled Mackay; "an' the world itself will soon be too small for you."
At last the end of the salt lake was reached, and cheerfully a path was forced over the encircling ridges, for all had high hopes of what might lie beyond. But disappointment again was their portion: the grim, unbroken desert stretched before them in all its hideous dreariness; the land of beau desire had not yet come.
"I remember well," said Mackay, "that Fortunate Spring was in a pretty bare sort o' country, but it certainly wasna as bad as this, although we had a hard tussle before we came to it."
On, on, they struggled; but, if anything, their course became more difficult as they proceeded. On the following morning a gentle wavy outline against the sky in the northerly distance warned them of some impending change, but by this time the members of the expedition had become spied to their comfortless lot, and scarce dared hope for an improvement until they neared the portals of their goal, their shadowy land of El Dorado.
Gradually the sinuous curves on the horizon loomed up plainer to the view, and lo! as they crested an intervening sand hillock, a strange sight met their gaze. As far as the eye could reach west or north, a sea of undulating sand ridges appeared, rolling down like gigantic breakers from the dim north-west, the mighty valleys between each swelling sand-wave being over a hundred yards apart and fully thirty feet deep. Capping these wonderful billows regular rows of saltbush and spinifex, so regularly spread, indeed, that in the rosy morning light the whole scene was like some Brobdingnagian field, with furrows bearing luxurious vegetation.
"I reckon we has struck the land o' Goschen at last," said the Shadow, joyously.
"It does look pretty," Jack allowed hesitatingly, as they stood to take in the view, and waited for the others to come up. Indeed, so unaccustomed had they grown to seeing such close array of even the wiry desert growths that for the moment all imagined they looked upon a wildering forest. The saltbush was by the fantasy of mirage exalted to lordly proportions, and the spiky spinifex patches drooped in the sun's rays like the spreading fronds of the stately palm.