"Buzzards!" whispered the girl, and shrank against the sand.
Torcred knew that the buzzards were the aero people's hereditary foes, but that did not seem adequate to explain the bright bitterness of hatred in the girl's eyes.... He was about to ask a question, when his eyes caught movement in the near distance and he froze, mouth open.
A hundred paces ahead on the way they had been going, atop a low mound, stood a figure—a man in queer garments, not identifiable with any of the races Torcred knew. When the Terrapin tried to make out his face, the man seemed to waver in the fading light; then he raised a hand in a gesture beckoning them toward him.
The bird-girl, back to the apparition, looked wide-eyed wonder. Torcred croaked wordlessly and pointed; and with the motion the stranger was gone from the ridge.
"What's the matter?" asked Ladna puzzledly.
"Nothing," Torcred managed to get out. "The shadows play tricks...."
As they crossed the rise, Torcred halted to tie a bootlace that didn't need tying. There were no tracks in the soft sand. Torcred remembered fearfully what he had heard of the visions that heralded death by thirst—but even sane people saw things that weren't there, such as the phantom lakes that had mocked them in the midday heat.
But he had been sure that vision was looking at him....
Two or three miles further on, it was almost dark. Torcred sank wearily down in the lee of a high ridge. "We'd better stop here. Perhaps a night's sleep will give us strength."
The girl sighed. "I think we will die on this desert, terrapin."