THE CRISIS COMES 
577 
The last six hens made a tragi - comic picture, as, 
cackling contentedly to themselves, they feasted with, 
every mark of satisfaction upon the carcass of the dead 
sheep. No doubt they had not yet missed the cock; 
but they would miss him afterwards. 
Why did we not kill the poor things ? Well, why did 
we not, with more reason, kill the two unhappy dying 
men, and so release them out of their misery ? These 
are questions which cannot be answered at a distance. 
When death stands open-mouthed waiting for you, you 
grow less sensitive to other people’s sufferings. We were 
all doomed. It was only a question of hours with us 
all ; and it seemed the most natural thing in the world 
that the oldest and weakest should die first. And as 
each fresh member of the caravan collapsed and sank on 
the ground, it did not in the least surprise us : we merely 
asked ourselves, “Whose turn is it next?” To kill a 
human being, even though he is struggling in the agonies 
of death, is murder, and always must be. We did not 
abandon the camels without some slight hope of being 
able to return to them with water and .save them yet. 
But the men could not possibly live so long. They were 
in fact virtually dead already. Otherwise, so iOng as there 
was the smallest chance of saving them, I should not — 
I could not, have left them behind. To have stayed 
beside them until the end came would have entailed the 
needless sacrifice of our own lives. We could do nothing 
to assuage their sufferings. For of water — the one thing 
they needed — the one thing that might possibly have 
saved their lives — we had none — ab-solutely not one 
drop. Nor could we have given them any comfort in 
the last dread moments : they were delirious — completely 
unconscious ; their minds were dead already. But why 
did we not take them on with us? For the sufficient 
reason that it was physically impossible. They were 
much too far gone to walk ; and the camels were much 
too weak to have carried them. Besides, even supposing 
the camels had been strong enough to carry them, to have 
taken dead men with us would, under the circumstances 
I--37 
