His slowly fading senses flickered back. He roused himself and sat up. In the gloom back of him he made out nothing: the opening was becoming obliterated by the dark without, so that he felt as though in a sealed box––a coffin almost. He felt an impulse to shout, but his dry lips choked this back. He could not sit still. He must act in some way. He rose to his hands and knees and began to grope about without any definite object. There was something uncanny in the thought that this silence had not been broken for centuries. He thought of it as his toes scraped along the granite behind him. Once when he put out his hands near the cave opening, they fell upon what felt like cloth. Something gave before his touch with a dry rattle as of bones. He drew back with the morbid thought that they really were bones. Perhaps some other poor devil had made his way here and died.
He felt a craving, greater at first even than his thirst, for light. If only the moon came in here somewhere; if only he could find wood to make a fire. He had a few matches, but these he must keep for something more important than catering to a fear. He turned back to the cave mouth, pressing forward this time to the very edge. He saw opposite him another sheer face of rock which came in parallel to this in which he was imprisoned. His eyes fell below to a 261 measureless drop. But the moon was shining and found its way down into these depths. With his eyes still down he bathed in this. Then, with returning strength, he turned to the left and his heart came into his throat. There was still more light; but, greater joy than this, he caught sight far below him of a pool of liquid purple. The cold, unshimmering rays of the moon played upon it in silver paths. It was the lake––the lake upon whose borders it was possible she stood at that very moment, perhaps looking up at these cliffs. It looked such a gentle thing––this lake. Within its calm waters another moon shone and about its edges a fringe of dark where the trees threw their shadows. He thrust his body out as far as possible to see more of it. The light and the color were as balm to his eyes. But it brought back another fever; how he would like to thrust his hot head into its depths and drink, drink, drink! The idea pressed in upon him so strongly, with such insane persistence, that he felt as though if he got very near the edge and took a firm grip with his toes, he could reach the water in a jump. It was worth trying. If he took a long breath, and got just the right balance––he found himself actually crouching. He fell back from this danger, but he couldn’t escape his thirst. He must find water. The dry dust had sifted into his throat––his lungs.
His thoughts now centered on nothing else but this. Water stood for everything in the world––for the world itself, because it meant life. Water––water––nothing 262 else could quench the fever which tore at his throat like a thing with a million sharp claws––nothing else could clear his brain––nothing else put the strength back into his legs.
Back into the cave he pressed––back into the unknown dark. The flinty sides were cool. He stopped to press his cheeks against them, then licked them with his dry tongue. Back––back away from the temptation to jump, he staggered. Another step, for all he knew, might plunge him into some dark well; but even so, it wouldn’t matter much. There might be water at the bottom. Now and then he paused to listen, for it seemed to him he caught the musical tinkling of dripping water. He pictured a crystal stream such as that in which when a boy he used to fish for trout, tinkling over the clean rock surface,––a sparkling, fairy waterfall where at the bottom he might scoop up icy handfuls.
He tried to pierce the dark to where this sound seemed to be. He struck one of his precious matches. The flame which he held before him was repeated a thousand times, in a shining pool to the left. With a throaty, animal-like cry, he threw himself forward and plunged his hands into the pool. They met a cutting surface of a hundred little stones. He groped all around; nothing but these little stones. He grabbed a handful of them and struck another match. This was no pool of water––this was not a crystal spring––it was nothing but a little pile of diamonds. In a rage he flung them from him. 263
Jewels––jewels when he wanted water! Baubles of stone when he thirsted! Surely the gods here who guarded these vanities must be laughing. If each of these crystals had only been a drop of that crystal which gives life and surcease to burning throats,––if only these bits could resolve themselves into that precious thing which they mocked with their clearness!
Maddened by the visions these things had summoned, he staggered back to the opening. At least he must have air––big, cooling draughts of air. It was the one thing which was left to him. He would bathe in it and drink it into his hot lungs. He moved on his hands and knees with his head dropped low between them like a wounded animal. It was almost as though he had become a child once more––life had become now so elemental. Of all the things this big world furnished, he wanted now but that one thing which it furnishes in such abundance. Just water––nothing else. Water of which there were lakes full and rivers full; water which thundered by the ton over crags; water which flooded down over all the earth. And this, the freest of all things, was taken from him while that for which men cut one another’s throats was flung in his face. Yes, he had become just a child once more,––a child mouthing for the breast of Nature.
When he reached the opening he dropped flat with his head over the chasm. His blurred eyes could still see one thing––the big, cool lake where the moon laughed back at herself,––the big cool lake where the 264 water bathed the shores,––the big cool lake where Jo slept.
Jo––love––life––these were just below him. And behind him, within reach of his weak fingers, lay a useless half billion in precious stones. So he fought for life in the center of the web.