xv WHERE A MAN CAN RAISE A THIRST 149 



men to drink. Feeling considerably refreshed, we 

 once more resumed our pursuit of the elephants, 

 but though we followed the spoor without resting, 

 they succeeded in keeping a safe distance ahead of 

 us until nightfall compelled us to give up the chase. 

 Keen as was our disappointment on the score of a 

 fruitless hunt, our failure to discover water was a 

 matter of much more serious import, and as dark- 

 ness precluded any further search in that direction, 

 we pitched camp. We now began to experience 

 the insistent pangs of thirst, and the silence that 

 suffering entails reigned over our little camp. 

 There was none of the chatter and laughter 



o 



inseparable from healthy, careless men, leading 

 free and open-air lives, and as nought was to 

 be gained by discussing the subject of our dis- 

 comfort, I turned in, only to be visited in my sleep 

 by all sorts of Tantalus-dreams, in which iced 

 champagne, hock and seltzer, and tankards of cool 

 beer engaged in a veritable devil-dance just beyond 

 my reach. 



Next morning, deeming that the elephants we 

 had pursued were many miles away, we decided to 

 return to the water-hole whither our carriers had 

 gone the previous day. Hardly had we been an 

 hour on our journey, when Fate, as if in a wilfully 

 malignant mood, brought us across the fresh spoor 

 of three large bull elephants (the foot-prints of 



