Mackay and Bob listened to the schemers with amusement, then, as they saw the ravenous heathen bolt the salt-laden meat with great gusto, they forgot for a moment their own thirsty condition and indulged in a paroxysm of laughter.
"For a certainty our dusky friend will want water badly soon," said Bob; and they all sat around the camp fire and calmly awaited developments. If their prisoner knew of the presence of water in the vicinity he must surely endeavour to find it—half a pound of the strongest salt in his interior might enlighten him as to the meaning of 'Babba Babba,' which Mackay had repeated to him so persistently. And they were not mistaken. Half an hour later he began to show unmistakable signs of uneasiness, and his lips moved like the gills of a fish out of water. Then he strained at the rope which bound him to a mulga sapling behind, and rolled his eyes beseechingly.
"Better give him a full hour yet," said Mackay. "We can thirst just as comfortably as he can now, I think."
Emu Bill chuckled dryly.
"I is a grand instructor o' furrin' languages," he said. "I just reckon that that there nigger knows what water means now."
It was nearly midnight, and the slow minutes dragged like ages as they sat around the fire anxiously watching the antics of the salt-gorged aboriginal. For a long time no one spoke, but their basilisk-like glare evidently disconcerted the sufferer in no little degree, and he commenced to moan in an exceedingly melancholy manner, and endeavoured to evade their gaze by every artifice in his power.
"He thinks we mean to eat him, and have been feeding him to make him nice and plump!" hazarded Bob at length, and he had truly guessed the captive's thoughts. However, the tortures of thirst were surely having due effect on the poor savage, and his cries soon became most distracting to the listeners' ears. Suddenly he broke into a wailing chorus which echoed dismally through the still air, and caused even the long-suffering camels to raise their heads in protest.
"B-bab-ba-bab-ba!" he cried, tugging strenuously at the binding cords.
"Patience ain't so bad a virtue, after all," soliloquized Emu Bill, calmly slackening the rope from the tree, and gripping the free end of it tightly. With a bound the native headed out into the densest part of the scrub, almost pulling Bill over the sand in his frantic haste; the rest of the party followed at their best speed. Their now tractable guide did not lead them any distance. He stopped in a small hollow not far from the scene of his capture, and with feverish hands scraped away some covering twigs and branches, revealing to the onlookers' eager eyes a glittering pool of clearest water.
With a deep gurgle of relief he buried his tangled visage in the spring, and drank so deeply that the Shadow felt compelled to jerk him backwards out of sheer regard for his welfare.