But Koos did a very curious thing after he had laid the harness out; he scraped a hole in the red-hot sand with his foot, and into this he poured every drop of the contents of the little keg. He need not have taken the trouble to scrape the hole, for the thirsty sand drank up the water as quickly as if it had been poured into space over the edge of the car of a balloon. However, there is nothing like being systematic when one has important work in hand. He stowed away the empty keg under the seat of the cart, and then went to fetch the horses.
These poor animals were standing, only a few hundred yards away, perched like so many goats upon a low ledge of light-coloured stone. This was more bearable to their feet than the red, scorching sand. The docile, well-trained brutes stood still until Koos went up and caught them. He laughed so heartily that the tears streamed down his cheeks, and he was hardly able to untie the hobble-knots from the forelegs of the youngest horse, which, being given to roaming, it was always necessary to secure. He led the horses back to the cart, and in a few minutes they stood in the traces uneasily shifting their feet from time to time, and looking round impatiently for the signal to start. Koos called to Nathan, who came forward and took his place, with many groanings, upon the hard, unprotected seat of the vehicle.
A start was made. Nathan seemed to fry in the heat. There was no longer a track, for whenever the wind blew the ever-shifting sand would have obliterated the trail of an army in an hour. Koos, however, knew every turn and changing fold in the limbs of the dune-monster, and took advantage of each depression, enabling him to force through one after another of the interminable series of tentacle-like ridges at its most vulnerable point.
The heat was indescribable. The horses broke into a lather of sweat at every ascent. This at once dried into adhesive flakes of white paste whenever the course led downhill. Nathan suffered increasing agonies from thirst, but he still listened to the persuasions of his companion against drinking whilst in the hot sunlight, and thus relaxing his pores until every drop of moisture drained out of his body. He accordingly, with increased admiration for his own powers of endurance, determined to hold out to the last extremity. From his manner it might have been supposed that this exercise of obvious discretion for his own advantage was really a something which Koos ought to have been extremely grateful for.
Twenty torrid miles of the dune-ground had to be travelled; on a day such as this, better fifty in the open Desert. After they had covered about eight miles, Nathan found his thirst absolutely intolerable, so he made Koos stop the cart and get the keg out from under the seat.
“Allemagtig!” exclaimed Koos, “the keg is empty!”
“Empty!” shrieked Nathan in agony. “Then I’ll die of thirst. Look here, you damned murdering hound; I’ll make you swing for this.”
Koos replied to the effect that he was very sorry; he supposed the cork must have sprung out from the jolting. Nathan’s moods alternated between the whimperingly pathetic and the impotently furious; his words, between blasphemous revilings and minor-keyed entreaties. Koos did his best to comfort him, promising water within two hours at the most.
The course now led up a deep and narrow passage between two branches which were rooted in the main dune almost at the same point, and which ran parallel for several miles. One of these had to be crossed close to its point of origin at a spot where it curved slightly, and where the winds had blown a shallow gap. This locality was like the innermost circle of hell. As the horses bravely struggled up to the gap through the scorching sand, into which they sank above their fetlocks, Koos leaped out of the cart so as to ease the strain, and asked Nathan to do the same. Nathan, however, plaintively declined, saying that he could not walk ten yards in the sand.
They reached the top of the ascent, and Koos stopped the horses for the purpose of giving them a blow. Then he climbed into the cart and took his seat beside his suffering companion. After they had rested for a couple of minutes, Nathan said, in tones of husky despair—