'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 color 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
"sand-storm;" or, to give it its Arab title, a _simoom_.
The misty vapor 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.
What danger could there be among the "dunes?"
Not much to a man awake, and with open eyes. In such a situation, there
might be discomfort, but no danger.
Different however, was it with the slumbering castaways. Over them a
peril was suspended--a real peril--of which perhaps, on that night not
one of them was dreaming--and in which, perhaps, not one of them would
have put belief,--but for the experience of it they were destined to be
taught before the morning.
Could an eye have looked upon them as they lay, it would have beheld a
picture sufficiently suggestive of danger. It would have seen four human
figures stretched along the bottom of a narrow ravine, longitudinally
aligned with one another--their heads all turned one way, and in point
of elevation slightly _en echelon_--it would have noted that these forms
were asleep, that they were already half buried in sand, which,
apparently descending from the clouds was still settling around them;
and that, unless one or other of them awoke, all four should certainly
become "smoored."
What does this mean? Merely a slight inconvenience arising from having
the mouth, ears, and nostrils obstructed by sand, which a little
choking, and sneezing, and coughing would soon remove.
Ask the Highland shepherd who has imprudently gone to sleep under the
"blowin' sna'"; question the Scandinavian, whose calling compels him to
encamp on the open "fjeld"; interrogate Swede or Norwegian, Finn or
Lapp, and you may discover the danger of being "smoored."
That would be in the snow,--the light, vascular, porous, permeable
snow,--under which a human being may move, and through which he may
breathe,--though tons of it may be superpoised above his body,--the snow
that, while imprisoning its victim, also gives him warmth, and affords
him shelter,--perilous as that shelter may be.
Ask the Arab what it is to be "smoored" by sand; question the wild
Bedouin of the Bled-el-jereed,--the Tuarick and Tiboo of the Eastern
Desert,--they will tell you it is danger often _death_!
Little dreamt the four sleepers as they lay unconscious under that swirl
of sand,--little even would they have suspected, if awake,--that there
was danger in the situation.
There was, for all that, a danger, great as it was imminent,--the
danger, not only of their being "smoored," but stifled, suffocated,
buried fathoms deep under the sands of the Saaera, for fathoms deep will
often be the drift of a single night.
The Arabs say that, once "submerged" beneath the arenaceous "flood," a
man loses the power to extricate himself. His energies are suspended,
his senses become numbed and torpid--in short, he feels as one who goes
to sleep in a snow-storm.
It may be true; but, whether or no, it seemed as if the four English
castaways had been stricken with this inexplicable paralysis. Despite
the hoarse roaring of the breakers, despite the shrieking and whistling
of the wind, despite the dust constantly being deposited on their
bodies, and entering ears, mouth, and nostrils,--despite the stifling
sensation one would suppose they must have felt, and which should have
awakened them,--despite all, they continued to sleep. It seemed as if
that sleep was to be eternal!
If they heard not the storm that raged savagely above them, if they felt
not the sand that pressed heavily upon them, what was there to warn,
what to arouse them from that ill-starred slumber?