"Oh, uncle! this is terrible," said Edward, gazing abstractedly around where nothing but desolation met his eye.
"We can do no better than help ourselves out of it," said Jane, encouragingly. "Be a man, Edward, and, doing your best, take your chance with the rest."
"That is a brave girl," said Howe, with a nod of approval. "Let us be courageous; the darkest hour of the night is that just before the dawn. Is it not so, chief?"
"Always," answered the chief. "I have heard our old men speak of these deserts, but they are more vast and dreary than even the report portrayed them. But if we would escape, every moment is precious, and we must haste away."
Alas! a new evil had visited them, for on going to their horses they found them lame, stiff, and hardly able to move. One refused to rise from the bed of sand, and no effort could move him. Constant travel in the desert beneath the burning sun, had done the work for him; he was useless, and to save his dying from thirst and starvation, they killed him. They did that with sorrowful hearts, well knowing if they waited to take him with them, it would be death to them, and that he could never escape from his girdle of sand, if left alive.
The other horses soon began to show sufficient activity to warrant their travelling, and again they rode on. That day they had sufficient to last them, but they could not make it hold out longer unless they put themselves on short allowance. Halting at noon, where not a ray of deliverance shone upon them any more than their first day out, they concluded to kill the three spare horses in order to save the water and grass for the rest. Selecting the three that exhibited the greatest signs of lassitude, they killed them. Confident now of holding on their course another day, they took their luggage on the horses they rode, and again set out. A copious shower of rain fell before night which was a great relief, as it refreshed their heated bodies as well as their horses, and cooled the temperature of the sand, from which they had been greatly annoyed by its scattering, and sometimes almost blinding their eyes, causing them to become inflamed and exceeding painful. That night also rain fell; but making a covering of the skins they used for saddles, they managed to get a few hours' sleep, and as it served to refresh them and the horses, and knowing that rain in the desert is of rare occurrence, they felt as if it was truly providential. They also found their horses in the morning in better condition than they had expected, and with a faint hope that they might reach a forest that day, they set out expecting that, in all probability, they were near land well moistened, and the showers they had received had been only the extension of a larger one that had passed over a tract of country supplying moisture for plenteous evaporation. This they knew the desert could never do, and it caused their spirits to elate with hope. In a few hours more a small speck was seen circling in the air. "A bird! a bird!" cried the chief, pointing at the object. Howe's quick eye caught the sight of it, when it disappeared, and was lost in the distance.
"Thank Heaven," cried Jane, fervently; "we shall be saved at last!" and tears of joy filled eyes that trials could not dim.
"Yes, we are near a forest," said the chief; "the dark hour is passing; may the day in its brightness repay us for its darkness."
"Amen to that!" said Sidney; "and may the day bring no evil worse than the night."
"What can be worse," indignantly asked Edward, "than the terrible days we have spent on these burning sands."