He retraced the trodden path—going on beyond the point where he had first struck it.
Nothing but the torture of thirst could have endowed him with strength or spirit to proceed. And this was every moment becoming more unendurable.
The trees through which he was making way were mostly acacias, interspersed with cactus and wild agave.
They afforded scarce any shelter from the sun, that now in mid-heaven glared down through their gossamer foliage with the fervour of fire itself.
The perspiration, oozing through every pore of his skin, increased the tendency to thirst—until the appetite became an agony!
Within reach of his hand were the glutinous legumes of the mezquites, filled with mellifluous moisture.
The agaves and cactus plants, if tapped, would have exuded an abundance of juice. The former was too sweet, the latter too acrid to tempt him. He was acquainted with the character of both. He knew that, instead of allaying his thirst, they would only have added to its intensity. He passed the depending pods, without plucking them. He passed the succulent stalks, without tapping thorn.
To augment his anguish, he now discovered that the wounded limb was, every moment, becoming more unmanageable.
It had swollen to enormous dimensions.
Every step caused him a spasm of pain.
Even if going in the direction of the doubtful streamlet, he might never succeed in reaching it?
If not, there was no hope for him.
He could but lie down in the thicket, and die!
Death would not be immediate.
Although suffering acute pain in his head, neither the shock it had received, nor the damage done to his knee, were like to prove speedily fatal. He might dread a more painful way of dying than from wounds.
Thirst would be his destroyer—of all shapes of death perhaps the most agonising.
The thought stimulated him to renewed efforts; and despite the slow progress he was able to make—despite the pain experienced in making it—he toiled on.
The black birds hovering above, kept pace with his halting step and laborious crawl.
Now more than a mile from the point of their first segregation, they were all of them still there—their numbers even augmented by fresh detachments that had become warned of the expected prey.
Though aware that the quarry still lived and moved, they saw that it was stricken. Instinct—perhaps rather experience—told them it must soon succumb.
Their shadows crossed and recrossed the track upon which he advanced—filling him with ominous fears for the end.
There was no noise: for these birds are silent in their flight—even when excited by the prospect of a repast.
The hot sun had stilled the voices of the crickets and tree-toads. Even the hideous “horned frog” reclined listless along the earth, sheltering its tuberculated body under the stones.
The only sounds to disturb the solitude of the chapparal were those made by the sufferer himself—the swishing of his garments, as they brushed against the hirsute plants that beset the path; and occasionally his cries, sent forth in the faint hope of their being heard.
By this time, blood was mingling with the sweat upon his skin. The spines of the cactus, and the clawlike thorns of the agave, had been doing their work; and scarce an inch of the epidermis upon his face, hands, and limbs, that was not rent with a laceration.
He was near to the point of despondence—in real truth, he had reached it: for after a spell of shouting he had flung himself prostrate along the earth, despairingly indifferent about proceeding farther.
In all likelihood it was the attitude that saved him.
Lying with his ear close to the surface, he heard a sound—so slight, that it would not have been otherwise discernible.
Slight as it was, he could distinguish it, as the very sound for which his senses were sharpened. It was the murmur of moving water!
With an ejaculation of joy, he sprang to his feet, as if nothing were amiss; and made direct towards the point whence proceeded the sound.
He plied his improvised crutch with redoubled energy. Even the disabled leg appeared to sustain him. It was strength and the love of life, struggling against decrepitude and the fear of death.
The former proved victorious; and, in ten minutes after, he lay stretched along the sward, on the banks of a crystal streamlet—wondering why the want of water could have caused him such indescribable agony!
Chapter Forty Three. The Cup and the Jar.
Once more the mustanger’s hut!
Once more his henchman, astride of a stool in the middle of the floor!
Once more his hound lying astretch upon the skin-covered hearth, with snout half buried in the cinders!
The relative positions of the man and the dog are essentially the same—as when seen on a former occasion—their attitudes almost identical.
Otherwise there is a change in the picture since last painted—a transformation at once striking and significant.
The horse-hide door, standing ajar, still hangs upon its hinges; and the smooth coats of the wild steeds shine lustrously along the walls.
The slab table, too, is there, the trestle bedstead, the two stools, and the “shake down” of the servitor.
But the other “chattels” wont to be displayed against the skin tapestry are either out of sight, or displaced. The double gun has been removed from its rack; the silver cup, hunting horn, and dog-call, are no longer suspended from their respective pegs; the saddle, bridles, ropes, and serapes are unslung; and the books, ink, pens, and papeterie have entirely disappeared.
At first sight it might be supposed that Indians have paid a visit to the jacale, and pillaged it of its penates.
But no. Had this been the case, Phelim would not be sitting so unconcernedly on the stool, with his carroty scalp still upon his head.
Though the walls are stripped nothing has been carried away.
The articles are still there, only with a change of place; and the presence of several corded packages, lying irregularly over the floor—among which is the leathern portmanteau—proclaims the purpose of the transposition.
Though a clearing out has not been made, it is evident that one is intended. In the midst of the general displacement, one piece of plenishing was still seen in its accustomed corner—the demijohn.
It was seen by Phelim, oftener than any other article in the room: for no matter in what direction he might turn his eyes, they were sure to come round again to that wicker-covered vessel that stood so temptingly in the angle.
“Ach! me jewel, it’s there yez are!” said he, apostrophising the demijohn for about the twentieth time, “wid more than two quarts av the crayther inside yer bewtifull belly, and not doin’ ye a bit av good, nayther.
If the tinth part av it was inside av me, it wud be a moighty binnefit to me intistines. Trath wud it that same.
Wudn’t it, Tara?”