But now the nandu, seeing that he will soon be treading the air, makes a desperate effort to stop short, in which failing he wheels half round, barely in time to save his life and mine, and then courses madly along the brink for miles, as if unable to tear himself away, keeping me in a state of continual fear, for a single slip, or an accidental swerve to the right, and we should have fallen headlong down the rocks, against which the waves are beating.
As night closes in he gradually—to my inexpressible relief—draws inland, making in a direction that must sooner or later take us back to the Cordillera, though a long way south of the pass by which we had descended to the desert. But I have hardly sighted the outline of the mighty barrier, looming portentously in the darkness, when he alters his course once again, wenching this time almost due south. And so he continues for hours, seldom going straight, now inclining toward the coast, anon facing toward the Cordillera but always on the southward tack, never turning to the north.
It was a beautiful night. The splendor of the purple sky with its myriads of lustrous stars was in striking contrast with the sameness of the white and deathlike desert. A profound melancholy took hold of me. I had ceased to fear, almost to think, my perceptions were blinded by excitement and fatigue, my spirits oppressed by an unspeakable sense of loneliness and helplessness, and the awful silence, intensified rather than relieved by the long drawn moaning of the unseen ocean, which, however far I might be from it, was ever in my ears.
I looked up at the stars, and when the cross began to bend I knew that midnight was past, and that in a few hours would dawn another day. What would it bring me—life or death? I hardly cared which; relief from the torture and suspense I was enduring would be welcome, come how it might. For I suffered cruelly; I had a terrible thirst. The cords chafed my limbs and cut into my flesh. Every movement gave an exquisite pain; I was continually on the rack; rest, even for a moment, was impossible, as, though the nandu had diminished his speed, he never stopped. And then a wind came up from the sea, bringing with it clouds of dust, which well-nigh choked and half blinded me; filled my ears and intensified my thirst. After a while a strange faintness stole over me; I felt as if I were dying, my eyes closed, my head sank on my breast, and I remembered no more.
[Chapter XXVI.]
Angela.
“Regardez mon père, regardez! Il va mieux, le pauvre homme.”
“C’est ça, ma fille chérie, faites le boire.”
I open my eyes with an effort, for the dust of the desert has almost blinded me.