We therefore made for the north-west edge and climbed the highest dune, whence we hoped to distinguish the big dune near our camp, but could not identify it. It was nearly sunset, we were utterly worn out and tortured with thirst, and could only talk in a whisper, but few words were necessary. We had traversed one side and the base of an elongated triangle, and to find our camp we must complete it, steering so as to cut, if possible, our spoor of the day before, and the long _straat_ leading to our camp. Had we been able to rest the night and look for it by daylight, this would have been child’s play, but we could not disguise the fact that we were almost at the end of our tether, and unless we did the journey in the cool of the night we should never live through the heat of another day. It was now nearly sundown, and we realised that at any rate we could not hope to reach our old spoors before the light failed. However, we had to push on, and, marking our course very carefully, we started again. One dog limped behind, the other poor brute lay dying, and we gave it a merciful bullet. We calculated that our camp lay about twelve miles north-east; twelve miles--a trivial distance to a pedestrian on a good road, but here in the dunes a difficult day’s march, even if we could make our way to it direct, which was extremely doubtful. One thing buoyed us up somewhat, and that was the belief that our non-arrival in camp would cause them to light a beacon-fire on the high dune, and as night fell, again and again, we were deceived by the bright stars that came up over the horizon, twinkling so brightly--even low down and directly over the dunes--in the clear atmosphere, that for a time they appeared exactly like a blazing fire.