move; I am chained to the rocks. I grasp one after another, and
endeavour to drag myself along: I partially succeed; but oh, what
efforts I make! The labour exhausts my strength. I renew my exertions.
I am gaining ground: rock after rock is passed. I have neared the
rushing water; I feel its cold spray sprinkling me. I am saved!

After such fashion was my dream. It was the shadow of a reality,
somewhat disorganised; but the most pleasant reality was that which
awoke me. I found myself in the act of being sprinkled, not by the
spray of a torrent, but by a plashing shower from the clouds!

Under other circumstances, this might have been less welcome, but now I
hailed it with a shout of joy. The thunder was rolling almost
continuously; lightning blazed at short intervals; and I could hear the
roar of a torrent passing down the barranca.

To assuage thirst was my first thought; and for this purpose, I
stretched out my concave palms, and held my mouth wide open, thus
drinking from the very fountains of the sky.

Though the drops fell thick and heavy, the process was too slow, and a
better plan suggested itself. I knew that my _serape_ was water-proof:
it was one of the best of Parras fabric, and had cost me a hundred
silver dollars. This I spread to its full extent, pressing the central
parts into a hollow of the prairie. In five minutes' time, I had
forgotten what thirst was, and wondered how such a thing should have
caused me so much torture!

Moro drank from the same "trough," and betook himself to the grass
again.

The under side of the blanket was still dry, and the patch of ground
which it had sheltered. Along this I stretched myself, drew the serape
over me; and after listening a while to the loud lullaby of the thunder,
fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

LOST UPON THE PRAIRIE.

I slept sweetly and soundly. I had no dreams, or only such as were
light, and forgotten with the return of consciousness.

It was late when I awoke. A bright sun was mounting into the blue and
cloudless sky. This orb was already many degrees above the horizon.

Hunger was the father of my first thought. I had eaten nothing since an
early hour of the preceding day, and then only the light _desayuna_ of
sweet-cake and chocolate. To one not accustomed to long fasting, a
single day without food will give some idea of the pain of hunger; that
pain will increase upon a second day, and by the third will have reach