"It is not great, after all," retorted Kennedy; "and if
I were never again to have the pleasure of drinking water,
I should agree on condition that I should never be deprived
of it."
At six o'clock the balloon was floating over the palm-trees.
They were two shrivelled, stunted, dried-up specimens
of trees--two ghosts of palms--without foliage, and more
dead than alive. Ferguson examined them with terror.
At their feet could be seen the half-worn stones of a
spring, but these stones, pulverized by the baking heat
of the sun, seemed to be nothing now but impalpable dust.
There was not the slightest sign of moisture. The doctor's
heart shrank within him, and he was about to communicate
his thoughts to his companions, when their exclamations
attracted his attention. As far as the eye could
reach to the eastward, extended a long line of whitened
bones; pieces of skeletons surrounded the fountain; a caravan
had evidently made its way to that point, marking its
progress by its bleaching remains; the weaker had fallen
one by one upon the sand; the stronger, having at length
reached this spring for which they panted, had there found
a horrible death.
Our travellers looked at each other and turned pale.
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