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 
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 
