THE CRISIS COMES 
579 
ocean of sand. But I was buoyed up by an abounding 
energy and the joy of life. I would not die in the desert. 
I was too young. I had too much to lose. Life had still 
much to give me. Never before had 1 valued it as I 
did now. My travels in Asia should not end in that place. 
I must traverse the continent from side to side. There 
were numerous problems I wanted to solve before I 
reached my far-distant goal — Peking. Never before had 
I been so full of overflowing gladness, never before had 
my vital spirits been so buoyant with energy. I was 
determined I would get through, even though I should 
crawl it like a worm through the sand. 
Our pace was slow, desperately slow. Nevertheless we 
kept scrambling over one high dune after another. At 
length another of the camels fell. He at once stretched 
out his legs and neck, prepared to die. We transferred 
his load to the back of Ak-tuya, the white camel, which 
seemed to be the strongest. We released the dying 
animal from the rope that bound him to the camel im- 
mediately in front of him. let him keep his ill-omened bell, 
and left him to his fate in the darkness of the night. 
With the other four camels we steered our way as well 
as we could see towards the next sand-dune. 
The night was pitch dark. The stars twinkled brightly 
through the pure atmosphere ; but their light was too 
faint to enable us to judge of the inequalities of the 
ground. We were stopped by every sand-dune we came 
to. For a few minutes, we had a level slope, which we 
got down easily enough ; then all of a sudden a wall of 
sand would rise up immediately in front of us. The 
camels’ strength was exhausted. Even the cool night 
air was incapable of revivifying them. They kept 
stopping incessantly. P'irst one hung back, then another. 
Somehow the rope that bound them together would get 
loose, and one or two of the camels would lag behind, 
and we would go on some distance before we became aware 
o 
of our loss. When we did perceive it, we had to halt, 
and turn back and fetch them. 
Islam Bai was completely done up. He writhed in 
