laughing
boy, Hercules balancing the world on his shoulders and looking for a
woman with long shining tresses and eyes like the stars of heaven to
bend to his will.

If such a woman came to life in Hercules' arms would you like the job of
stopping him from sending the world crashing? Would you care to try?

Don't you see? Larsen was closer to us than breathing and as necessary
as food and drink and our dreams of a brighter tomorrow. Don't think we
didn't hate him at times. Don't think we didn't curse and revile him.
You may glorify a legend from here to eternity, but the luster never
remains completely untarnished.

Larsen wouldn't have seemed completely real to us if we hadn't given him
muscles that could tire and eyes that could blink shut in weariness.
Larsen had to sleep, just as we did. He'd disappear for days.

We'd wink and say, "Larsen's getting a good long rest this time. But
he'll be back with something new up his sleeve, don't you worry!"

We could joke about it, sure. When Larsen stole or cheated we could
pretend we were playing a game with loaded dice--not really a deadly
game, but a game full of sound and fury with a great rousing outburst of
merriment at the end of it.

But there are deadlier games by far. I lay motionless, my arms locked
across my chest, sweating from every pore. I stared at Harry. We'd been
working all night digging a well, and in a few days water would be
bubbling up sweet and cool and we wouldn't have to go to the canal to
fill our cooking utensils. Harry was blinking and stirring and I could
tell just by looking at him that he was uneasy too. I looked beyond him
at the circle of shacks.

Most of us were sleeping in the open, but there were a few youngsters in
the shacks and women too worn out with drudgery to care much whether
they slept in smothering darkness or under the clear cold light of the
stars.

I got slowly to my knees, scooped up a handful of sand, and let it
dribble slowly through my fingers. Harry looked straight at me and his
eyes widened in alarm. It must have been the look on my face. He arose
and crossed to where I was sitting, his mouth twitching slightly. There
was nothing very reassuring about Harry. Life had not been kind to him
and he had resigned himself to accepting the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune without protest. He had one of those emaciated,
almost skull-like faces which terrify children, and make women want to
cry.

"You don't look