The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 3 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LOST IN THE NUBIAN DESERT. 469 rambling letter to my friends in case they should ever find me. Even this little exertion overcame me; and after a few scrawls I gave up the task. Hours of complete unconsciousness in the broil of the sun came oftener now. Again the slave lad’s long suffering on the desert served him well. I realized that he would survive me by a day, or perhaps more. I gave him my effects, weapons and all, making him understand that in case my friends came my belongings were to be turned over to them, and that the slave him- self should be rewarded. Then I sank in my dust bed, falling into a sort of coma. ‘‘T was aroused by the crack of a rifle. The lad had used my weapon well, bringing down a Small antelope with a single shot. ‘Too weak to rise, I turned my head and watched the boy crawl over to his prize. After what seemed to be the struggle of his life, he dragged the deer toward me. Then I closed my eyes with a prayer of thankfulness, and soon felt the warm blood of the gazelle, dropping from the bullet wound on its breast, bathing my swollen lips. ‘The effect was magical. . I revived—I lived again! ‘The slave was now saving my life even as I had saved his. The gratitude he showed gave me renewed courage. : ‘“But, strange as it may seem, the happy incident of the shooting of the young deer exercised rather a depressing than a hopeful influence upon the spirits of my stanch champion. The poor little lad refused to partake of the saving grace which he had vouchsafed me. Hourly he grew weaker. Delirium followed, and I was compelled to use my poor strength to force the raw food into his mouth, and all tono purpose. Can any one realize how my heart was now pricked by a consciousness of the heroism of this Nubian slave during these terrible hours? Ah, the vigil was long and bitter—through torrid days, and nights black as only Nubia knows them, with death and desolation encompassing us on every hand, the prowling jackals and the starving tigers - calling fiercely to one another at the smell of blood, only awaiting my sink- ing into sleep to plunge into the carnival which should end all for me. In order to rob the night of its terrors, and the day of its madness, I strove with my poor patient who was fast ebbing into the last slumber, with none to succor, none to restore. I felt that with him gone I should lose all hope, all wish to live. We seemed like the last two surviving human beings of earth, and I chose that he, the child of Nubian darkness, and I, the son of Western day, might go hand in hand together. ‘On that last day of my desolate watch the sun was sinking over the limitless sand ocean, and I thought to see it no more. I tried to pray. Ah, what had all these bitter days been but one living, blood sweating prayer— one cry borne up as from the pits of deepest Tophet into the responseless Heaven! I became prophetic now. ‘The past seemed to become clear and unclouded, the future transparent and filled with loveliest visions. I knew this to be the beginning of the end, and so sank back resignedly, even welcoming now the cup I had so long shrank from with weak and waning terror—the blessed hemlock of oblivion. ‘Suddenly, along the borders of the afterglow on the horizon, I saw a dark object stealing up like a phantom, bathed in the glory of celestial COTRmiclaoolK< (S@)