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There was no other day during that entire brief campaign when its glare was so intense or the heat so suffocating. The men curled up in the trenches, with their heads pressed against the damp earth, panting and breathing heavily, and the heat-waves danced and quivered about them, making the plain below flicker like a picture in a cinematograph.

The crest of the divide was studded with great outcroppings of sand-stone, and in the shadow of one giant rock we laid down to rest before we descended into that barren valley where the heat-waves shimmered like crepon silk.

The balloons of the Banded Epeira are bombs which, to free their contents, burst under the rays of a torrid sun. To break they need the fiery heat-waves of the dog-days.

Meanwhile the sunshine on the water goes down deeper, and so does not send back so many heat-waves into the air; consequently the air on the top of the water is cooler and heavier, and it rushes in from over the sea to fill up the space on the shore left by the warm air as it rises. This is why the seaside is so pleasant in hot weather.

Thus for the next few days we moved forward, the monotony of existence broken only by the great variety of mirage, the glare of heat-waves, and the silent signal in the sky of other voyageurs like ourselves. On reaching Pig Boggy, nothing but pools greeted us, while the regular crossing was dry and dusty and paved with cattle bones.

It'll only hurt you again." He was looking out over the prairies, watching the heat-waves that arose in fantastic circles, as in Spring. "You can't hurt me again," he said wearily. The vague feeling of irreparable loss gripped the girl anew; but this time she rushed on desperately, in spite of it. "Oh, why couldn't I have met you somewhere else, under different circumstances?" she wailed.

So also it is the heat-waves which make the air hot and light, and so cause it to rise and make winds and air-currents, and these again give rise to ocean-currents. It is these dark rays, again, which strike upon the land and give it the warmth which enables plants to grow.

Lastly, in damp countries we have the larger but still invisible particles of vapour hanging about among the air-atoms. For they are very greedy of heat, and though the light-waves pass easily through them, they catch the heat-waves and use them to help themselves to expand.

Anthony saw that she was trying to forget her uncertainty and devote herself to enjoying the evening. It had been a tropical day, and even into late twilight the heat-waves emanating from the dry road were quivering faintly like undulating panes of isinglass. The sky was cloudless, but far beyond the woods in the direction of the Sound a faint and persistent rolling had commenced.

Even at this early hour the heat-waves danced and quivered in the still air in a blinding, confusing manner. The men departed from the camping site while the day was young. They pushed their long, narrow, dugout canoes into the water, clambered aboard, took up the short paddles and pushed to the other side which had not, as yet, been despoiled of its buried treasures.