instinctively huddled against their human companions in distress.
Wargrave took off his jacket and spread it around Mrs. Norton's head,
holding her to him.

With a shrill wail the dark storm swept down upon them, and a million
sharp particles of sand beat on them, stinging, smothering, choking
them. The horses crowded nearer to the man, and the woman clung tighter
to him as he wrapped her more closely in the protecting cloth. He felt
suffocated, stifled, his lungs bursting, his throat burning, while every
breath he drew was laden with the irritating sand. It penetrated through
all the openings of his clothing, down his collar, inside his shirt,
into his boots. The heat was terrific, unbearable, the darkness intense.
Wargrave began to wonder if his first apprehensions were not justified,
if they could hope to escape alive or were destined to be buried under
the stifling pall that enveloped them. He felt against him the soft body
of the woman clinging desperately to him; and the warm contact thrilled
him. A feeling of pity, of tenderness for her awoke in him at the
thought that this young and attractive being was fated perhaps to perish
by so awful a death. And instinctively, unconsciously, he held her
closer to him.

For minutes that seemed hours the storm continued to shriek and roar
over and around them. But at length the choking waves began to diminish
in density and slowly, gradually, the deadly, smothering pall was lifted
from them. The black wall passed on and Wargrave watched it moving away
over the desert. The storm had lasted half an hour, but the subaltern
believed its duration to have been hours. The fine grit had penetrated
into the case of his wrist-watch and stopped it. A cool, refreshing
breeze sprang up. Pulling his jacket off Mrs. Norton's head, Wargrave
said: