But he hoped to get to it at last, as every time he flagged in the chase the mysterious figure of the day before appeared again to lure him still further on.

At length, unable to move another step, Martin sat right down on the bare ground: it was like sitting on the floor of a heated oven, but there was no help for it, he was so tired.

The air was so thick and heavy that he could hardly breathe, even with his mouth wide open like a little gasping bird; and the sky looked like metal, heated to a white heat, and so low down as to make him fancy that if he were to throw up his hands he would touch it and burn his fingers.
And the Mirage--oh, how it glistened and quivered here where he had sat down, half blinding him with its brightness! Now that he could no longer run after it, nor even walk, it came to him, breaking round and over him in a thousand fantastic shapes, filling the air with a million white flakes that whirled about as if driven by a furious wind, although not a breath was stirring.

They looked like whitest snow-flakes, yet stung his cheeks like sparks of fire.

Not only did he see and feel, he could even _hear_ it now: his ears were filled with a humming sound, growing louder and louder every minute, like the noise made by a large colony of bumble-bees when a person carelessly treads on their nest, and they are angered and thrown into a great commotion and swarm out to defend their home.