LOOKING FOR WATER.
Smith, whose throat was dry, and whose tongue was half-blackened,
stumbled on for a hundred yards before he thought of taking his
bearings. For now in a country of scanty timber, which only
gradually grew denser, one part was terribly like another. He
returned to the tree, and, getting his tomahawk, blazed his way for
nearly a mile. And though the trees were thicker, he saw no sign of
water, and few signs of life beyond swarms of ants and some native
bees.
As he walked, he spoke a little to himself, but it was chiefly of
far-away things, and he chuckled now and again with a very frightful
sound. Though every once in a while he became half delirious, he was
yet able to control his wandering mind. It occurred to him that he
felt as he had sometimes done in drink, when it was necessary to have
his wits about him. So, as he walked, he stopped sometimes and said
to himself, as if he were another man:
"Pull yourself together, old son."
He stumbled on in the intense heat, and sometimes he stayed behind a
bigger tree and let the shade cover him. As he slashed at one tree,
he noticed the bark was not wholly dry. So, cutting into the
sapwood, he got a chip, and sucked it. Why hadn't he done that for
the poor Baker?
And as he travelled he was aware of men, or shadows, or ghosts behind
every tree. He called to them, but when he came up they were far
ahead of him. He believed in them at last, and they terrified him a
little. He held his tomahawk as if to defend himself. And then he
grew angry, and remembered, with peculiar gusto, the hot taste of the
blood of Mandeville's murdered horse.
But the delirium left him when he caught his foot in a root, and went
head-long. For he turned about in a blind rage and cut the root
through savagely. It was alive, and had done it on purpose. He was
no more than a child.
And by some odd and ridiculous notion of his mind, he began to feel
angry with the Baker. Why did the man not come himself, why did he
send him on such a hideous and futile errand, while he took his ease,
lying down in the shade? When he got so far, it struck Smith with
terrible distinctness that he did not remember in any way how he came
to be with Mandeville in such a position. He could not recollect
anything of the yesterday, and though he recalled the New Find, that
seemed very far off and vague, and in no way connected with their
present trouble. But he said at last, that when he saw the Baker he
would ask him about it. Meantime he had to get water, and he held up
his water-bag, which was as dry as a last year's bone.
But the trees now became denser, and there were patches of very thick
scrub. He remembered that he had not blazed a tree for a good time,
and he stupidly blazed every one he came to.
Presently he found himself futilely going round one tree, as though
he meant to ring-bark it, and for a moment he could not remember in
which direction he should go. But at last he recalled the fact, that
the sun was on the right side of the back of his neck, and that his
foolish squat shadow should be on his left. He walked fast, and ran.
He had been travelling about an hour, when it occurred to him with a
horrible shock, that he neither knew who he was, nor what he was
doing. He sat down on a wind-fallen tree, and pondered painfully,
sucking his finger in a babyish manner. He knew very well that he
was somebody who was thirsty, but he could not remember his own name,
nor his own identity, and the frightful catastrophe appalled him. He
had a peculiar desolation around him, the desolation of some
newly-created being, born full-grown without knowledge of his
destiny. He struggled with his brain for what seemed innumerable
centuries, and it gave no answer. An intolerable melancholy
oppressed him, and he still sucked his finger. And suddenly he
noticed that it seemed to taste like milk, and he appeared to smell
milk. He bit it, and tongued a little blood, which tasted like milk
too. He resumed his fight for his own soul, and he took up his
tomahawk; looking at it idly, he saw Mandeville's name on it, and
said he knew that name. And then he saw Mandeville, and his own mind
came back. He knew who he was. It was an intolerable relief.
But, then, the thirst came on him again, and his aural centre went
wrong. He heard frogs; he swore to himself he heard them croaking.
But it was all as dry as his throat. What was a frog doing in a dry
forest? He rose up suddenly, and began to run again. And then he
heard frogs once more; why, there were millions, millions of them,
and they deafened him! He dropped his tomahawk, and ran through a
bit of blind scrub, and out into sudden silence, which was quite as
appalling as the noise he had heard. He ran on again, and stopped,
and ran, with his dry tongue between his teeth. He knew he had
thirst delusions on him. When he heard a frog next, he shook his
head pettishly, and was as angry as a nervous man worried by drumming
in his ears. He would be seeing water soon! And the big frog
boomed, boomed, and boomed. He went on slowly through the scrub, and
came to some saplings. The bit of whitish ground under them looked
like water, and he shook his head again, A little more, and he would
believe it--believe there was water.
And then the maddening boom of a world of frogs began again. He
cursed them without a voice, for now his voice was gone, and he put
his fingers in his ears and ran a little, and came right out of the
saplings.
He stayed, glaring, and then, turning, sat down on the ground. Oh,
these horrible, horrible delusions! What had he done to be so
tormented? For that time he had seen water, a deep, deep creek of
cool water.
"No, no," he cried to himself, "it's the devil's country, and devil's
water, and all of a piece with the frogs."
He turned round again slowly, trembling as he turned. And then he
crawled on his hands and knees, and at last he rose and fell again,
with his mouth in thick mud, and water on his burning brow. He
pushed forward six inches, and drank.
[Illustration: He pushed forward six inches, and drank.]
No! it was not a delusion. It was water after all.
He lay and drank like an animal, and then, feeling his brain reel, he
twisted round and blindly clawed his way back up the bank. For he
felt dimly that, if he became insensible there, he would drown like a
thirsty fly. And when he was in safety his senses did leave him for
a space.
When he came to, he felt for a long time as weak as a child, but he
was sane, quite sane, and the strange and horrible delusions of the
thirsty bush had vanished. He remembered that poor Mandeville was
dying. Perhaps, he said, he is even now dead. At the thought of
that, he sprang to his feet, but went blind, and fell on his knees.
When he next rose he could walk, but he filled his water-bag with
trembling hands. He turned to go, but, staying, wondered if this was
a creek, or only a water-hole. Perhaps there was some motion in the
water. He threw in a twig to try, and found it did move slowly to
the south. It was a creek, and so would be easier to discover again.
But could he find Mandeville? He almost doubted it.
For when he began to go back over his journey from the tree under
which his chum was still lying, it seemed such an incredible one both
by time and distance that the sun appeared to lie. By the position
of the sun, he could not have been more than three hours. That
seemed absurd and ridiculous. Had he then lain insensible
twenty-four hours? It occurred to him that he might possibly have
been by the creek for a night. It certainly was possible; such a
thing, he knew, might happen. But how was he to know? How indeed?
And as he asked himself the question, his heart sank. He knew that
if he found Mandeville alive, his mad journey had only consumed a few
hours. But a day more would certainly kill him, when it was doubtful
if a few hours would not do it. And to go back would inevitably take
longer than it had taken to come. He began to run, and then he
stopped. It would never do to go too hastily; if he missed the
blazed way, he might never see Mandeville again. So he tracked
himself back through the thicker scrub by some hardly visible
footsteps and some broken twigs. He came at last to the spot where
he had dropped his tomahawk, and his heart beat more freely. He
forgot how insane he had been, for now he was quite himself. He
forgot how rarely he had blazed the trees, before he found himself
hacking round one single trunk, like a madman. And when he came to
that tree, it struck him with the shock which shakes every man, who,
believing himself in a lone land, finds evidence of other human
beings. For Smith could not, for a long time, believe he had done it
himself. It looked purposed; it suggested some end which he thought
alien to his own journey. Until he fitted the edge of the tomahawk
exactly into a clean wide cut of the ring-barking, he was alarmed;
but that reassured him.
"I must have been crazy," he muttered, and, taking his direction, he
went on. But he now came to the gap which he had left in his
marking, and he found no more slashes in trees for two hundred yards.
He examined each carefully, and often went back. Just as he came to
the conclusion that he would probably never get through, he saw a
whitish mark in a tree fifty yards further south. His heart leapt
up, he was once more in the true line.
And now he ran till he came upon the dry creek bed he and Mandeville
had crossed. He shouted aloud:
"Mandeville, Mandy!"
And no answer came back to him. He ran like a madman, and at last
spied the tree under which he had left his chum. He knew it for the
same one, for he could see his own blankets rolled up leaning against
it. But when he reached it Mandeville was not there.
"I say, Mandy, where are you?" called Smith in a high, tremulous
voice. And there was no answer. The silence seemed a flood; it made
Smith shake. For that silence promised to be eternal; the loneliness
was complete. He began searching like a madman, and suddenly he
remembered that they had gone twenty yards further when he had
dropped his swag, for the next tree gave the most shade. The moment
after, Smith was kneeling by the Baker, who was breathing very
laboriously, and quite unconscious.
Smith's face twitched as he poured a little water between the other's
dry lips. For he believed he was back too late. Mandeville seemed
in the very act of death; the heavy, slow pulsation of the artery in
his neck looked as if it might stop at any moment. His heart strove
dreadfully with his thirsty, thickened blood.
But his lips opened, and he drank unconsciously drop by drop. And
very slowly life came back to him.
If Smith could have prayed at any time, he would have prayed as his
one friend turned hesitatingly from the open door of death, and not
even his bitterness against the world and the heaven of brass above
could prevent him from breaking down with joy, and sobbing like a
child as the Baker opened his weary eyes.