"Alas!" he exclaimed. "We have none; we have used all we had."
And so the matter was settled; Atupo, the priest, returning to the Temple, and ourselves veering round to the west, between the Wood and the morass, towards the place where we had left William Rushby.
[CHAPTER XXVIII--CONCLUSION]
Early that afternoon we arrived at our destination, and found that we were none too soon. For Rushby had long since consumed all the water we had left him, but had managed somehow to move himself, though in the greatest pain, to the bank of the stream that flowed near at hand, where he was able, from time to time, to fill his pannikin with water. Also, that very morning, he had eaten the last of the food that we had left him. So it was well we came no later.
He told us that he had slept daily for many hours; and on one occasion he had awakened quite suddenly, to find one of those small deer that were numerous in the Wood staring at him with its soft, mild eyes, from a distance of not more than ten yards.
I asked him if he had not been afraid that some wild beast of prey might find him in the night. But he told me that he had never bothered himself about such matters, since both by day and night he had kept a fire alight. He had heard the report of the first shot, that which had brought about the death of Joshua Trust, though he had heard nothing of the other shots, upon the far side of the Wood, fired in the glade where Amos Baverstock had met his tragic end.
"I have lain here for days," said he, "wondering what was happening, and whether I would ever set eyes upon any one of you again."
When we told him the story of the death of Amos, he seemed little enough impressed; for he was a rough-and-ready seaman, without the gift of imagination, and he had not been there himself to behold with his own eyes the terror of that incident or to hear the wild laughter of the fugitive as he fled before us through the Wood.
"A fit end for such a man," said he. "He himself was as evil as any snake, though he had courage of a sort; for I remember him well, when he faced the mutineers on board the Mary Greenfield. And what of the map?" he asked, turning suddenly to Bannister, who shrugged his shoulders.
"We do not know," he answered; "but in default of certain evidence we must presume that that little fragment which we brought with us all the way from Sussex went down into the water when Amos was crushed to death."