THE CAMP OF DEATH 
565 
a sack to serve as a pillow. I then crept in, literally 
crept in, on my hands and knees, took off all my clothes, 
and lay down on the bed. Islam and Kasim followed 
my example, and so did Yolldash and the sheep ; that is 
to say they too came inside the tent. Yollchi remained 
outside, keeping in the shade. Mohammed Shah still 
lay where he first fell. The poultry were the only 
creatures in the caravan which kept up their spirits. 
They sauntered about in the blazing sunshine, picking at 
the camels’ pack-saddles and the provision bags. As yet 
it was only half-past nine. We had not covered more 
than three miles, and had an interminably long day before 
us. Nobody ever longed for sunset so earnestly as we 
did that ist of May in the year 1895. 
I was completely overcome by weariness, and scarce 
had strength to turn myself over in bed. At this time 
despair took possession of me — though never before, and 
never afterwards. All my past life flitted before my mind 
as in a dream. I thought I saw the earth, and all the 
noisy world of men and their doings ; and they seemed to 
me to be at an immense distance from me, absolutely 
unattainable — I thought all this disappeared, and the gates 
of eternity stood ajar, and I felt as if in a few hours I 
should be standing on their threshold. I thought of my 
home in the Far North ; and my soul was harrowed, when 
I pictured the uneasiness, the anxiety which would seize 
upon those who were near and dear to me when we never 
came back and nothing was heard of us. They would 
wait expectantly year after year, and they would wait in 
vain : no information would ever reach them. There 
would be nobody to tell the tidings of our fate. Mr. 
Petrovsky would of course send out messengers to inquire 
about us. They would go to Merket, and would there 
learn, that we left that place on April loth, intending to 
steer our course due east. But by then our trail would 
be long obliterated in the sand ; and it would be absolutely 
impossible to know in which direction we had gone. By 
the time a systematic and thoroughly exhaustive search 
could be set on foot, our bodies would probably have been 
