nest and wring its neck. He jumped up and rushed out.

"What are you doing?" he cried. "Why kill a setting hen?"

"Aye," said the old woman, "it is a pity, for she is the last chicken in
the world."

Lewis and the stranger were hungry. Night was falling. There was no sign
of their belated pack-train. When boiling had done its utmost, they ate
the last chicken on earth. Before they had finished, a child, pitifully
thin, came in, bearing on her head a small jar of water.

"Now drink," said the old woman, "for this water came from the river,
twelve miles away."

They drank, then the stranger set his helmet on the floor for a pillow,
laid his head upon it, and slept. Lewis sat beside him. The child had
curled up in a corner. The guide was snoring outside. In the doorway the
old woman crouched and crooned.

Presently she turned and peered into the house. She beckoned to Lewis.
He rose and followed her. She led him around the house, through a
thicket of thorn-trees, and up the slope of a small sand-dune. Toward
the west sand-dunes rose and fell in monotonous succession.

At the top of the dune the old woman crouched on her heels and motioned
to Lewis to sit.

"My son," she said, "thou hast taken my carcass for the common clay of
these parts. I cannot blame thee, but had I the water to wash this