Each figure bore, on its bent back, a goat-skin bag as heavily filled
with water as could be carried. Strongly alkaline as that water was,
corroding to the mouth and nauseous to the taste, still the refugees
were clinging to it. For only this now stood between them and one
of the most hideous deaths known to man--the death of thirst in the
wilderness.
The woman's face, in spite of pain, anxiety, weariness, retained
its beauty. Her heavy masses of hair, bound up with cloth strips,
protected her head from "the great enemy," the sun. As for the others,
they had improvised rough headgear from their torn shirts, ingeniously
tied into some semblance of _cherchias_. Above all, the Legionaries
knew that they must guard their heads from the direct rays of the
desert sun.
In silence, all plodded on, on, toward the bleeding sphere that, now
oblate through flaming mists, was mercifully sinking to rest. No look
of surprise marked the face of any man, that "Captain Alden" was in
reality a woman. The Legionaries' anguish, the numbing, brutalizing
effects of their recent experience had been too great for any minor
emotions to endure. They had accepted this fact like all others, as
one of a series of incredible things that had, none the less, been
true.
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