UNDER FIRE The desert was sometimes Gobi, sometimes Sahara, but always an infinite stretch of sand that floated up and up in a stifling layer, like the tide.

Rudolph, desperately choked, continued leaping upward against an insufferable power of gravity, or straining to run against the force of paralysis.

The desert rang with phantom voices,--Chinese voices that mocked him, chanting of pestilence, intoning abhorrently in French.
He woke to find a knot of bed-clothes smothering him.

To his first unspeakable relief succeeded the astonishment of hearing the voices continue in shrill chorus, the tones Chinese, the words, in louder fragments, unmistakably French.

They sounded close at hand, discordant matins sung by a mob of angry children.