“Gumbo tells me Sili is ill this morning. I’m afraid he won’t last much longer, poor lad. He has been sick too often lately, and looks bad.” I passed Elatu two aspirin tabloids. “Give him those and make him ride all day with his eyes covered from the sun so far as possible. Also, let him have extra water if he wants it badly before the end of the day.”
My camel went on, and Elatu halted. He would find Sili in the rear.
Camels—men—food—water—those make up one endless round of anxiety to all who travel the vast, empty world that makes up uttermost desert. Therein Nature is antagonistic to anything that lives. Wherefore, to those who venture forth, life is alert to its very foundation, and the contest for existence severe, and often bitter. Long, weary days bring few successes, and many disappointments and failures; and great lessons of life are taught and comprehended, though few words go forth in complaint of those things of tragedy and disaster that men keep hidden away in the closed book of the soul.
I muse in my saddle over the strange gamble of it all, so similar, in plan, to the gamble of life, familiar to most of us who have intimately known struggle for existence. But here the gamble is intensified, the material rude and raw, with vast wastes of barrenness immediate on all sides, and on the very threshold, ready to engulf and destroy the moment weakness is declared.
“THE LONG, EXACTING MARCH”
I am still pondering over this philosophy when I become aware that there is just a faint glow of light commencing to show in the east. It is the first indication of dawn.
Ever so slowly it increases till the distant line between earth and sky begins to form.
In a little time it is discerned that the light is coming from behind the earth, below the far eastern horizon.
Gradually the stars go out, and the earth becomes mistily unfolded.