"Drink!" said he.
Had I heard him?
Was my uncle beside himself?
I stared at, him stupidly, and felt as if I could not understand him.
"Drink!" he said again.
And raising his flask he emptied it every drop between my lips.
Oh! infinite pleasure! a slender sip of water came to moisten my burning mouth.
It was but one sip but it was enough to recall my ebbing life.
I thanked my uncle with clasped hands.
"Yes," he said, "a draught of water; but it is the very last—you hear!—the last.
I had kept it as a precious treasure at the bottom of my flask.
Twenty times, nay, a hundred times, have I fought against a frightful impulse to drink it off.
But no, Axel, I kept it for you."
"My dear uncle," I said, whilst hot tears trickled down my face.
"Yes, my poor boy, I knew that as soon as you arrived at these cross roads you would drop half dead, and I kept my last drop of water to reanimate you."
"Thank you, thank you," I said.
Although my thirst was only partially quenched, yet some strength had returned.
The muscles of my throat, until then contracted, now relaxed again; and the inflammation of my lips abated somewhat; and I was now able to speak. .
"Let us see," I said, "we have now but one thing to do.
We have no water; we must go back."
While I spoke my uncle avoided looking at me; he hung his head down; his eyes avoided mine.
"We must return," I exclaimed vehemently; "we must go back on our way to Sn?fell. May God give us strength to climb up the crater again!"
"Return!" said my uncle, as if he was rather answering himself than me.
"Yes, return, without the loss of a minute."
A long silence followed.
"So then, Axel," replied the Professor ironically, "you have found no courage or energy in these few drops of water?"
"Courage?"
"I see you just as feeble-minded as you were before, and still expressing only despair!"
What sort of a man was this I had to do with, and what schemes was he now revolving in his fearless mind?
"What! you won't go back?"
"Should I renounce this expedition just when we have the fairest chance of success!
Never!"
"Then must we resign ourselves to destruction?"
"No, Axel, no; go back.
Hans will go with you.
Leave me to myself!"
"Leave you here!"
"Leave me, I tell you.
I have undertaken this expedition.
I will carry it out to the end, and I will not return. Go, Axel, go!"
My uncle was in high state of excitement.
His voice, which had for a moment been tender and gentle, had now become hard and threatening.
He was struggling with gloomy resolutions against impossibilities.
I would not leave him in this bottomless abyss, and on the other hand the instinct of self-preservation prompted me to fly.
The guide watched this scene with his usual phlegmatic unconcern. Yet he understood perfectly well what was going on between his two companions.
The gestures themselves were sufficient to show that we were each bent on taking a different road; but Hans seemed to take no part in a question upon which depended his life. He was ready to start at a given signal, or to stay, if his master so willed it.
How I wished at this moment I could have made him understand me.
My words, my complaints, my sorrow would have had some influence over that frigid nature.
Those dangers which our guide could not understand I could have demonstrated and proved to him.
Together we might have over-ruled the obstinate Professor; if it were needed, we might perhaps have compelled him to regain the heights of Sn?fell.