Just then one pair of legs, the longer pair, stirred, the sand heaved up convulsively, and, uttering wandering words in a choky voice, there arose the figure of Oliver Orme.
For a moment we stood and stared at each other, and strange spectacles we were.
"Is he dead ?" muttered Orme, pointing to the still buried Higgs.
"Fear so," I answered, "but we'll look;" and painfully we began to disinter him.
When we came to it beneath the lion-skin, the Professor's face was black and hideous to see, but, to our relief, we perceived that he was not dead, for he moved his hand and moaned.

Orme looked at me.
"Water would save him," I said.
Then came the anxious moment.

One of our water-bottles was emptied before the storm began, but the other, a large, patent flask covered with felt, and having a screw vulcanite top, should still contain a good quantity, perhaps three quarts--that is, if the fluid had not evaporated in the dreadful heat.

If this had happened, it meant that Higgs would die, and unless help came, that soon we should follow him.

Orme unscrewed the flask, for my hands refused that office, and used his teeth to draw the cork, which, providentially enough the thoughtful Quick had set in the neck beneath the screw.