Toward daylight of the morning, de Spain dreamed he was not alone––that a figure moved silently in the faintness of the dawn––a figure he struggled to believe a reality, but one that tricked his wandering senses and left him, at the coming of another day, weaker, with failing courage, and alone.
But when he opened his eyes later, and with a clearer head, he found food and drink near. Unable to believe his sight, he fancied his wavering senses deceiving him, until he put out his hand and felt actually the substance of what he saw. He took up a bottle of milk incredulously, and sipped at it with the caution of a man not unused to periods of starvation. He broke eggs and swallowed them, at intervals, hungrily from the shell; and meat he cached, animal-like, in near-by crannies and, manlike, in his pockets.
He was determined, if she should come again, to intercept his visitor. For forty-eight hours 186 he tried cat-naps with an occasional sandwich to keep up his strength. Nan returned unseen, and disappeared despite his watchfulness. A new supply of food proved she had been near, but that it would be hard to time her coming.
When she did come, the third time, an innocent snare discovered her presence. It was just before day, and de Spain had so scattered small obstacles––handfuls of gravel and little chips of rock––that should she cross the ledge in the dark she could hardly escape rousing him.
The device betrayed her. “I’m awake,” announced de Spain at once from his retreat. When she stopped at the words he could not see her; she had flattened herself, standing, against a wall of the ledge. He waited patiently. “You give me no chance to thank you,” he went on after a pause. Nan, drawing nearer, put down a small parcel. “I don’t need any thanks,” she replied with calculated coolness. “I am hoping when you are well enough you will go away, quietly, in the night. That will be the only way you can thank me.”
“I shall be as glad to go as you can be to have me,” rejoined de Spain. “But that won’t be thanking you as I am going to. If you think you can save my life and refuse my thanks as I mean to express them––you are mistaken. I will 187 be perfectly honest. Lying out here isn’t just what I’d choose for comfort. But if by doing it I could see you once in two or three days–––”
“You won’t see me again.”
“No news could be worse. And if I can’t, I don’t know how I’m going to get out at all. I’ve no horse––you know that. I can’t stand on my foot yet; if you had a light you might see for yourself. I think I showed you my gun. If you could tell me where I am–––”
He halted on the implied question. Nan took ample time to reply.
“Do you mean to tell me you don’t know where you are?” she asked, and there was a touch of vexed incredulity in her tone.