h
returning, and with an intense desire to kneel down and drink the
precious fluid to the last drop.

It was a hard fight, but he conquered, and staggered on to where the
opening into the hut gaped before him, ruddy in the last rays of the
setting sun.

Were the inmates dead, and was he bringing that which would have saved
them, too late?

He tottered in and he shuddered as he gazed at their wildly distorted
faces. Dallas lay gazing up, and Roylance was on the left, perfectly
motionless, but Pan was lying on his back, rolling his head slowly from
side to side.

There was a tin pannikin, the one that had held the last drops of the
water, on the floor close to the case which had served as a table, and
as Syd stooped to reach it, a horrible dizziness seized him, and he
nearly fell and scattered the precious burden.

But he saved himself by snatching at the stone wall, and brought down
one of the little blocks of which it was composed. Then dipping about a
tablespoonful of the water with the pannikin, he let a few drops fall in
Roylance's mouth, then in the lieutenant's, and lastly in Pan's, and as
the water was absorbed, for neither seemed to have the power to swallow,
he repeated this twice, his own powers returning more and more, and
bringing that intense desire to drink in a way that was terrible.

But he controlled it successfully, and went on giving a few drops of the
precious life, as it were, to each, and setting his heart throbbing and
a hysterical feeling rising in his throat, as he found that he was not
too late.

He wanted to drink the last drops himself, then he wanted to sit on the
floor and weep and sob like a child. Then he felt that he must cry out
and yell and kick like a mad creature, and all these desires had to be
fought down, so that he could go on now trickling slowly the cold water
between the white and blackened lips, over which he passed his wet
finger from time to time, jealously careful lest a drop should be lost,
till the whole quart was gone, and the last drop drained from the bucket
into the tin.

"More, more!" panted Syd, as he looked wildly from one to the other of
the sufferers, whom he found making spasmodic efforts to swallow, and
taking pannikin and bucket, he went feebly out and down the gap to where
he had left Rogers and Strake.

The sun had gone down and the short twilight would soon be passed. They
must get more water before it was too dark.

"No," he thought, "it