THE WATER OF LIFE.
Still exhausted from his recent battle with the waves, Lawrence was not
in the best condition for this new struggle. Before he had gone far, he
was forced to rest. He lowered Claire to the ground carefully and
dropped beside her. His effort in carrying her had made him breathe
hard, the sun was beating down on them, and his throat was dry and
parched. Speaking was becoming difficult.
"If we don't find water soon, we're ended," he managed to say.
"I'm afraid we are," she admitted. "Do you know, Lawrence, you shouldn't
try to carry me. I weigh over a hundred and thirty pounds. That is too
much for any man. Without me, you might make it, even though you
couldn't travel so steadily ahead."
"Perhaps," he agreed. "I've thought of that. But, you see, I would have
to feel my way. At best I'd get a lot of falls. I might walk off a
precipice. That doesn't appeal to me, now that I've set myself to
winning."
"And yet you are almost certain to wear yourself out to no purpose if
you carry me," she repeated. "If you could do it and get me through, I'd
never stop you. I've a husband in America who loves me, and I want to
get back to him, but you aren't equal to it. I see no advantage in
dying a mile or ten miles inland. For one's grave, this is as good a
place as any."
She spoke of dying in a matter-of-fact way that made him feel strange,
though he thought of it in exactly the same way himself. He believed
that he was a mere animal and that death was a mere cessation of energy.
"I wonder if she feels just as I do about it," he pondered. "Perhaps
not. But it can't matter anyway. Here we are, and death does seem fairly
certain."
He was breathing more regularly now, though his throat burned and his
tongue stuck to his mouth disagreeably.
"We'd better be moving," he said, rising with an effort.
"As you please," she assented.
Then, as he lifted her: "My ankle is swollen dreadfully. If we could
find water, I'd bathe it and put a stick splint on it."
He did not answer. Silence fell between them while he plodded ahead.
They started up the mountainside, and the way became increasingly
difficult. There was a dense undergrowth through which he was compelled
to shove his feet. There were rocks which she could not see, down which
he was constantly slipping. Her directions barely kept him from bumping
into the trees that grew closer and closer together. Occasionally she
pushed a branch aside from before him, and laughed as he stooped to pass
under, throwing her forward so that she had to cling to his neck to keep
her position.
On and on he forced his way, his teeth clenched, his breath broken by
the strain. She made herself as easy to carry as she could, but beyond
that she showed no sign of sympathy. Again and again he was obliged to
stop and put her down while he rested. His head was throbbing
frightfully. He gave up trying to talk.
During one of their frequent rests she had asked him quietly, her eyes
filled with a soft, calculative haze: "How much are you good for,
Lawrence?"
He had answered: "Till we find water." She had laughed a little at that,
and it had sounded unpleasant to him.
Now she said again: "You don't face facts, do you?" He made no answer.
She continued: "It's strange how we humans are always so overdetermined.
One ought to know by the time he is grown that he is a puppet in the
hands of circumstance. Now I go on hoping that you can carry me out to
life and my husband, and you plod determinedly on as if you were really
able to do it. Of course, you may, but it is entirely dependent upon
outside things."
He was too tired to answer, even to think. Besides, that was exactly his
view of the situation.
"You see," she went on, "here we are, two distinct groups of living
cells, each loving life and wanting it. Our pasts have been very
different, our futures would have been; but here we are. I am resentful,
because you are blind, because you are not stronger, because I cannot
walk. You are probably resenting the same things. Perhaps you resent my
saying what I do. You want me to reassure you and to promise success. If
I did, you would know in your real mind that I was lying to you for the
sake of getting you to do more. Yet both of us would feel happier if I
could do it. I can't."
He stood up and took her in his arms without a word.
"We are going a few yards farther," she laughed. "Well, if ever any
animal deserved life, you do."
He bit his lip and climbed on up the hill. In his mind he was saying
over and over: "Just a mere intellect, nothing more. That's all she is."
Yet in his arms she felt very feminine. The sense of her body so close
to him seemed strangely out of keeping with her talk.
He remembered a few other women of her type; he wondered what the end of
their daily association would be. Then gradually his thinking ceased to
be clear. His thirst more and more wove itself into his consciousness
until his mind was a blurred fantasmagoria, in which, repeating itself
over and over in the midst of strange ideas, would come the flashing
sound of unattainable water. He did not talk, he did not think. Through
the trees he wound his way with the grim determination of a beast
fighting against death.
The sun passed its zenith and sank slowly. It grew cooler in the forest
through which he lurched, but he was hardly aware of it. Claire, too,
was rapidly losing control over herself. She had ceased to talk, save to
utter dull, monosyllabic commands to him. The pain from her ankle and
her own thirst were blending into a dizzying maze of torture.
As darkness settled over the forest, she grew afraid. Ordinarily it
would have been a delight to her, here among the trees, but now the
shadowing night filled her with ideas of horror. She forgot her
theories, and clung to him so that he was the more hampered. She grew
afraid lest he should drop her, lest he should give up the fight, and
with that came an overwhelming desire to urge him on. She thought of
wild tales that she might tell to spur his faltering strength. At first
she resisted, then as her desire for life grew within her, she began to
lie to him. "It isn't far, just a little way to water," she whispered.
He struggled unsteadily forward. They had passed the top of the ridge
and were descending the other side. He was scarcely aware of his own
motion. He did not hear her directions, and stumbled against the trees.
When her ankle struck a bough, she realized in a flash of pain that he
was not listening to her. Then she felt him sinking down.
Gripping his shoulder, she shouted: "Go on! Water ahead!" He heard her,
his mouth opened, and he gathered himself up to stumble a few steps
farther through the darkness. They seemed to be deep in a wooded ravine.
He staggered again and fell.
She was thrown violently forward, and flung out a hand to save herself.
As she lay there, half-dazed, suddenly she felt her fingers grow cold
and wet. Water! A small stream, no larger than that from a hydrant, was
trickling over the rock.
Dragging herself to it, she drank greedily. She dipped her hands in it.
She laughed joyously and splashed. For a few minutes she played like a
child. Then she remembered Lawrence.
Lifting her hands full of water, she threw it on his face. His mouth was
open, and a few drops fell upon his black tongue. She threw another
handful, then took her skirt and, wetting it, wrung it into his mouth.
He twisted over on his side and muttered: "Water."
She gave him more, and as he sat up, she said eagerly: "Here, Lawrence,
here."
Taking his hand, she pulled him toward the stream. He drank ravenously,
plunging his face and hands into the little line of water, making queer
noises over it.
Claire began to grow cold, and her ankle pained her till she shook like
a fevered person. He turned and sat up.
"You cold?" he managed to mutter.
She wanted to say "No," but her will was worn out. "Yes," she answered,
"very cold."
He laughed a little guttural laugh as he drew off his coat. "Take it,"
he said, dropping it near her hand.
She took the coat and drew it on. Lawrence was drinking again from the
stream. She listened to him for a time, as she lay there in the
darkness, then gradually her suffering and the strain under which she
had been, won the victory over her consciousness, and she heard no more.
He lay where he was, half unconscious. At last he began to feel the
chill of the place and drew himself up toward Claire. She did not move.
"We've got to do the best we can," he thought, and moved close to her so
that their bodies might warm each other.