“It’s so nice and smooth. You don’t have to keep stumbling over stones.”
“But that’s a fault, boy,” said his father. “Some of those great stones cast a little shade. Here we have none. Halt!” he cried loudly. “Four hours’ rest and sleep.”
The mules were unloaded, the ponies’ saddles removed, and the tent-sheet was spread over the horizontal raised pole for shade, such as it was; and then no one thought of how, but lay down to sleep, lying motionless till the doctor summoned them again for the resumption of the march, when all began to compare notes.
“Sleep? No, I never had a wink,” said Ned. “Who could sleep, with the sun seeming to burn a hole in that canvas?”
“I didn’t go to sleep either,” said Chris; “but one feels a bit rested with lying down.”
“No, one don’t,” said Ned; and the weary tramp went on, with nothing visible in front of the overstrained eyes but the glare, and a thick misty look as if the atmosphere was full of hot, dusty sand.
The pace at which they went on appeared to be slower, but it was the party’s want of perception which diminished and magnified at the same time, principally the latter, in making the journey appear longer than it really was, while that hot afternoon went on in a nightmare-like waking dream which made Ned complain at last that he was going off his head.
“I’m not,” said Chris, laughing. “I feel as if I’m always going off my legs.”
“What nonsense!” grumbled Ned.
“It isn’t; I feel so. It’s just as if my body goes on while my feet keep sinking in the sand and won’t keep up.”