Chapter 21

CHAPTER XXI.

COMPASSION FUSES THE PROFESSOR'S HEART

Next day we started early. We had to hasten forward. It was a threedays' march to the cross roads.

I will not speak of the sufferings we endured in our return. My unclebore them with the angry impatience of a man obliged to own hisweakness; Hans with the resignation of his passive nature; I, Iconfess, with complaints and expressions of despair. I had no spiritto oppose this ill fortune.

As I had foretold, the water failed entirely by the end of the firstday's retrograde march. Our fluid aliment was now nothing but gin;but this infernal fluid burned my throat, and I could not even endurethe sight of it. I found the temperature and the air stifling.Fatigue paralysed my limbs. More than once I dropped down motionless.Then there was a halt; and my uncle and the Icelander did their bestto restore me. But I saw that the former was struggling painfullyagainst excessive fatigue and the tortures of thirst.

At last, on Tuesday, July 8, we arrived on our hands and knees, andhalf dead, at the junction of the two roads. There I dropped like alifeless lump, extended on the lava soil. It was ten in the morning.

Hans and my uncle, clinging to the wall, tried to nibble a few bitsof biscuit. Long moans escaped from my swollen lips.

After some time my uncle approached me and raised me in his arms.

"Poor boy!" said he, in genuine tones of compassion.

I was touched with these words, not being accustomed to see theexcitable Professor in a softened mood. I grasped his trembling handsin mine. He let me hold them and looked at me. His eyes weremoistened.

Then I saw him take the flask that was hanging at his side. To myamazement he placed it on my lips.

"Drink!" said he.

Had I heard him? Was my uncle beside himself? I stared at, himstupidly, 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 myburning mouth. It was but one sip but it was enough to recall myebbing life.

I thanked my uncle with clasped hands.

"Yes," he said, "a draught of water; but it is the very last - youhear! - the last. I had kept it as a precious treasure at the bottomof my flask. Twenty times, nay, a hundred times, have I foughtagainst a frightful impulse to drink it off. But no, Axel, I kept itfor 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 crossroads you would drop half dead, and I kept my last drop of water toreanimate you."

"Thank you, thank you," I said. Although my thirst was only partiallyquenched, yet some strength had returned. The muscles of my throat,until then contracted, now relaxed again;