They could not pass the night without shelter.

The plain was likely to be inundated, and it did not present a single elevation on which it was possible to seek refuge.
But refuge, where would they seek it in this low desert, without a tree, without a bush?
The bowels of the earth even would not give it.
Two feet below the surface they would find water.
However, toward the north a series of low hills seemed to limit the marshy plain.

It was as the border of this depression of land.

A few trees were profiled there on a more distant, clearer belt, left by the clouds on the line of the horizon.
There, if shelter were still lacking, the little band would at least no longer risk being caught in a possible inundation.

There perhaps was salvation for all.
"Forward, my friends, forward!" repeated Dick Sand.