Guy Boothby

“ The night was very very still; the brilliance of the stars lit up the waste of sand, and the surging of the wires above the hut sounded like the notes of an Æolian harp.
Goddard sat by his companion’s bedside anxiously watching for the turn. Omerod had been delirious, off and on, all day.
As he sat looking down on his patient a new and unknown fear crept into Goddard’s heart. He began to wonder what he would do if left alone in the silence of the night, in the illimitable solitude of the unknown, with a dead man unshrived. ”

“ He was only thirty-three.
“Congratulations,” said Goddard from the doorway. “I wish it was me. Fancy town, with girls and shop windows, policemen and ’buses after this!”
He wheeled his hand over the scorching plain with its mirages and dancing heat haze. As he spoke a sand-devil whistled towards them, to break with a sort of low moan about a hundred yards from the gate. The thermometer registered 118° in the shadow of the veranda, and the hot wind was like the breath of the desert. ”

“ At any time, even with all the resources of medical science at one’s beck and call, it is not nice to have the sole charge of a delirious man. But in the solitude of the desert, remote from help of any kind, it becomes the most horrible of all conceivable horrors.
Hour by horn, through scorching days and sweltering nights, Goddard watched by the sick man’s bed; the closest supervision was necessary for the patient was often violent and always restless. ”