A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes,
and I fell forwards senseless at the edge of, the quicksand.
When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I
was sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga
Dass had disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down
again and prayed that I might die without more ado. Then the
unreasoning fury which I had before mentioned, laid hold upon
me, and I staggered inland toward the walls of the crater. It
seemed that some one was calling to me in a whisper--"Sahib!
Sahib! Sahib!" exactly as my bearer used to call me in the morning
I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand fell at my feet.
Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the
amphitheatre--the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to
my collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his
hand and showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro for the
while, that he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather
punkah-ropes knotted together, with a loop at one end.
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