Ab-Domen fought with the resource and bravery of a great commander. We were now all crouching low against the blast.
Suddenly I saw Ab-Domen point excitedly toward the East. A gigantic tidal-wave of sand was bearing down upon us through the murk. Of what followed I can only give a dim impression. I heard the parting of several anchor ropes and the screams of the anguished beasts as they and their riders were swept into oblivion. Then, as if to administer the coup-de-grace, two enormous sand-spouts loomed up from the south, hideous spinning wraiths, whirling dervishes of the desert, personifying all the diabolic malevolence of this ghastly land. One missed us, passing within a few yards of DeLong and myself; the other moved directly across the compact mass of doolahs who lay screaming in its path. I had a glimpse of a score of black bodies sucked upward into the swirling column, spinning helplessly in the vortex with arms and legs out-thrust, grasping or kicking at the empty air. Then all was dark.
Five hours later I dug myself out of suffocation and sand. The storm had passed. Twelve doolahs and two camels were missing. The rest were badly disorganized. But the desert lay, calm and peaceful about us. We had weathered the storm and, to my infinite joy, there, in the distance, the white walls and bending palms of an oasis gleamed in the evening sunlight—the wells of Arag-Wan. We had won through!
Chapter IV
The Wandering Wimpoles
Chapter IV
Still no trace of the Wimpoles. I was up early and out betimes. We had pitched our tents and rested our caravan in the shadow of the palms of Arag-Wan. Here our water-skins, canteens, camels and other containers were filled to overflowing. A trace of French thrift surprised me. The wells had been fenced off and equipped with a red Bowser-pump guarded by a half-cast Berber in brown cloak and battered visor-cap bearing the legend “Colonies d’Afrique.” There was free-air but not free-water.
“Combien de gallons?” asked the old chap.
“Fill ’em up,” I ordered, knowing that the next station was hundreds of miles to the eastward.