'WARE THE SAND.
As the gully in which they had gone to rest was too narrow to permit of
them lying side by side, they were disposed in a sort of lengthened
chain, with their heads all turned in the same direction. The bottom of
the ravine, as already stated, had a slight inclination; and they had,
of course, placed themselves so that their heads should be higher than
their feet.
The old sailor was at the lower end of this singular series, with the
feet of Harry Blount just above the crown of his head. Above the head
of Harry were the heels of Terence O'Connor; and, at the top of all,
reclined Colin, in the place where he had first stretched himself.
On account of the slope of the ground, the four were thus disposed in a
sort of _echelon_ formation, of which Old Bill was the base. They had
dropped into their respective positions, one after the other, as they
lay.
The sailor had been the last to commit himself to this curious couch; he
was also the last to surrender to sleep. For some time after the others
had become unconscious of outward impressions, he lay listening to the
"sough" of the sea, and the sighing of the breeze, as it blew along the
smooth sides of the sand-hills.
He did not remain awake for any great length of time. He was wearied,
as well as his young comrades; and soon also yielded his spirit to the
embrace of the god Somnus.
Before doing so, however, he had made an observation, one of a character
not likely to escape the notice of an old mariner such as he. He had
become conscious that a storm was brewing in the sky. The sudden
shadowing of the heavens; the complete disappearance of the moon,
leaving even the white landscape in darkness, her red colour as she went
out of sight; the increased noise caused by the roaring of the breakers;
and the louder "swishing" of the wind itself, which began to blow in
quick, gusty puffs; all these sights and sounds admonished him that a
gale was coming on.
He instinctively noted these signs; and on board ship would have heeded
them, so far as to have alarmed the sleeping watch, and counselled
precaution.
But stretched upon terra firma, not so very firm had he but known it,
between two huge hills, where he and his companions were tolerably well
sheltered from the wind, it never occurred to the old salt that they
could be in any danger; and simply muttering to himself, "the storm be
blowed!" he laid his weather-beaten face upon the pillow of soft sand,
and delivered himself up to deep slumber.
The silent prediction of the sailor turned out a true forecast. Sure
enough there came a storm which, before the castaways had been half an
hour asleep, increased to a tempest. It was one of those sudden
uprisings of the elements common in all tropical countries, but
especially so in the desert tracts of Arabia and Africa, where the
atmosphere, rarefied by heat, and becoming highly volatile, suddenly
loses its equilibrium and rushes like a destroying angel over the
surface of the earth.
The phenomenon that had broken over the arenaceous couch, upon which
slept the four castaways, was neither more nor less than a "sandstorm";
or, to give it its Arab title, a _simoom_.
The misty vapour that late hung suspended in the atmosphere had been
swept away by the first puff of the wind; and its place was now occupied
by a cloud equally dense, though perhaps not so constant, a cloud of
white sand lifted from the surface of the earth, and whirled high up
towards heaven, even far out over the waters of the ocean.
Had it been daylight, huge volumes, of what might have appeared dust,
might have been seen rolling over the ridges of sand, here swirling into
rounded pillar-like shapes, that could easily have been mistaken for
solid columns, standing for a time in one place, then stalking over the
summits of the hills, or suddenly breaking into confused and cumbering
masses; while the heavier particles, no longer kept in suspension by the
rotatory whirl, might be seen spilling back towards the earth, like a
sand shower projected downward through some gigantic "screen."
In the midst of this turbulent tempest of wind and sand, with not a
single drop of rain, the castaways continued to sleep.
One might suppose, as did the old man-o'-war's man before going to
sleep, that they were not in any danger; not even as much as if their
couch had been under the roof of a house, or strewn amid the leaves of
the forest. There were no trees to be blown down upon them, no bricks
nor large chimney-pots to come crashing through the ceiling, and crush
them as they lay upon their beds.