We stood up and looked about us, but the great storm had changed everything.  Where there had been sand-hills a hundred feet high, now were plains and valleys; where there had been valleys appeared sand-hills.  Only the high ridge upon which we had lain was as before, because it stood above the others and had a core of rock.  We tried to discover the direction of the oasis by the position of the sun, only to be baffled, since our two watches had run down, and we did not know the time of day or where the sun ought to be in the heavens.  Also, in that howling wilderness there was nothing to show us the points of the compass.

Higgs, whose obstinacy remained unimpaired, whatever may have happened to the rest of his vital forces, had one view of the matter, and Orme another diametrically opposed to it.  They even argued as to whether the oasis lay to our right or to our left, for their poor heads were so confused that they were scarcely capable of accurate thought or observation.  Meanwhile I sat down upon the sand and considered.  Through the haze I could see the points of what I thought must be the hills whence the Zeus declared that the lions came, although of course, for aught I knew, they might be other hills.

“Listen,” I said; “if lions live upon those hills, there must be water there.  Let us try to reach them; perhaps we shall see the oasis as we go.”

Then began our dreadful march.  The lion-skin that had saved our lives, and was now baked hard as a board, we left behind, but the rifles we took.  All day long we dragged ourselves up and down steep sand-slopes, pausing now again to drink a sip of water, and hoping always that from the top of the next slope we should see a rescue party headed by Quick, or perhaps the oasis itself.  Indeed, once we did see it, green and shining, not more than three miles away, but when we got to the head of the hill beyond which it should lie we found that the vision was only a mirage, and our hearts nearly broke with disappointment.  Oh! to men dying of thirst, that mirage was indeed a cruel mockery.

At length night approached, and the mountains were yet a long way off.  We could march no more, and sank down exhausted, lying on our faces, because our backs were so cut by the driving sand and blistered by the sun that we could not sit.  By now almost all our water was gone.  Suddenly Higgs nudged us and pointed upwards.  Following the line of his hand, we saw, not thirty yards away and showing clear against the sky, a file of antelopes trekking along the sand-ridge, doubtless on a night journey from one pasturage to another.

“You fellows shoot,” he muttered; “I might miss and frighten them away,” for in his distress poor Higgs was growing modest.

Slowly Orme and I drew ourselves to our knees, cocking our rifles.  By this time all the buck save one had passed; there were but six of them, and this one marched along about twenty yards behind the others.  Orme pulled the trigger, but his rifle would not go off because, as he discovered afterwards, some sand had worked into the mechanism of the lock.