The Wahimas and Samburus cheated their thirst by pulling out blades of poor grass and chewing its roots. Nevertheless, there was almost no moisture in it, as the inexorable sun burnt it, even below the earth's surface.* [*About the waterless plains in this region see the excellent book, entitled "Kilima-Njaro," by the Rev. Mr. Le Roy, at present Bishop of Gabon.]
Sleep, though it did not quench their thirst, at least permitted them to forget it; so when night followed, the men, weary and exhausted with the whole day's march, dropped as though lifeless, wherever they stopped, and fell into deep slumber. Stas also fell asleep, but in his soul he had too many worries and was disturbed too much to sleep peacefully and long. After a few hours he awoke and began to meditate on what was to come, and where he could secure water for Nell, and for the whole caravan, together with the people and the animals. His situation was hard and perhaps horrible, but the resourceful boy did not yet yield to despair. He began to recall all the incidents, from the time of their abduction from Fayûm until that moment: the great journey across the Sahara, the hurricane in the desert, the attempts to escape, Khartûm, the Mahdi, Fashoda, their liberation from Gebhr's hands; afterwards the further journey after Linde's death until reaching Lake Bassa-Narok and that place at which they were passing the night. "So much did we undergo, so much have we suffered," he soliloquized, "so often did it seem that all was lost and that there was no help; nevertheless, God aided me and I always found help. Why, it is impossible that, after having passed over such roads and gone through so many terrible dangers, we should perish upon this the last journey. Now we have yet a little water and this region—why, it is not a Sahara, for if it were the people would know about it."
But hope was mainly sustained in him by this, that on the southeast he espied through the field-glass some kind of misty outlines as though of mountains. Perhaps they were hundreds of English miles away, perhaps more. But if they succeeded in reaching them, they would be saved, as mountains are seldom waterless. How much time that would consume was something he could not compute for it all depended upon the height of the mountains. Lofty peaks in such transparent atmosphere as that of Africa can be seen at an immeasurable distance; so it was necessary to find water before that time. Otherwise destruction threatened them.
"It is necessary," Stas repeated to himself.
The harsh breathing of the elephant, who exhaled from his lungs as best he could the burning heat, interrupted every little while the boy's meditations. But after a certain time it seemed to him that he heard some kind of sound, resembling groans, coming from the direction in which the water-bags lay covered in the grass for the night. As the groans were repeated several times, he rose to see what was happening and, walking towards the grass plot a few score paces distant from the tent, he perceived two dark bodies lying near each other and two Remington barrels glistening in the moonlight.
"The negroes are always the same," he thought; "they were to watch over the water, more precious now to us than anything in the world, and both went to sleep as though in their own huts. Ah! Kali's bamboo will have some work to do to-morrow."
Under this impression he approached and shook the foot of one of the sentinels, but at once drew back in horror.
The apparently sleeping negro lay on his back with a knife sticking in his throat up to the handle and beside him was the other, likewise cut so terribly that his head was almost severed from the trunk.
Two bags with water had disappeared; the other three lay in the littered grass, slashed and sunken.
Stas felt that his hair stood on end.