would not come to him by thirst; mutiny first, he thought. The oxen
were refusing rum for the last time, and the men were beginning to eye
Captain Shard in a very ominous way, not muttering, but each man
looking at him with a sidelong look of the eye as though there were
only one thought among them all that had no need of words. A score of
geese like a long letter "V" were crossing the evening sky, they
slanted their necks and all went twisting downwards somewhere about
the horizon. Captain Shard rushed to his chart-room, and presently the
men came in at the door with Old Frank in front looking awkward and
twisting his cap in his hand.

"What is it?" said Shard as though nothing were wrong.

Then Old Frank said what he had come to say: "We want to know what you
be going to do."

And the men nodded grimly.

"Get water for the oxen," said Captain Shard, "as the swine won't have
rum, and they'll have to work for it, the lazy beasts. Up anchor!"

And at the word water a look came into their faces like when some
wanderer suddenly thinks of home.

"Water!" they said.

"Why not?" said Captain Shard. And none of them ever knew that but for
those geese, that slanted their necks and suddenly twisted downwards,
they would have found no water that night nor ever after, and the
Sahara would have taken them as she has taken so many and shall take