“Look here,” panted Adam, as he halted once more. “I’ve been told about the desert. But I didn’t pay particular attention and now I can’t remember.... I only know it’s hot—and this won’t do.”
It was just then that Adam, gazing back down the gray desert, saw puffs of dust and horses.
Panic seized him. He ran directly away from his pursuers, bending low, looking neither to right nor to left, violent, furious, heedless, like an animal in flight. And with no sense of direction, with no use of reason, he ran on till he dropped.
Then his breast seemed to split and his heart to lift with terrific pressure, agonizing and suffocating. He lay on the ground and gasped, with his mouth in the dust. Gradually the paroxysm subsided.
He arose to go on, hot, dry, aching, dizzy, but still strong in his
