"I tell you—I have drunk!"
Slowly he tilted the jar toward the thirsty sands.
"Drink, now, or I pour all this on the ground!"
Beaten, she extended a quivering hand. They shared the last of the water. The man took less than a third. Then they set out again on the endless road of pain.
Was it that same day, or the next, that the man fell and could not rise again? The woman did not know. Something had got into her brain and was dancing there and would not stop; something blent of sun and glare, sand, mirage, torturing thirst. There was a little gray scorpion, too—but no, that had been crushed to a pulp by the man's heel. Or had it not? Well—
The man! Was there a man? Where was he? Here, of course, on the baked earth.
As she cradled his head up into her lap and drew the shelter of her burnous over it, she became rational again. Her hot, dry hand caressed his face. After a while he was blinking up at her.
"Bara Miyan! Violator of the salt!" he croaked, and struck at her feebly. And after another time, she perceived that they were staggering on and on once more.
The woman wondered what had happened to her head, now that the sun had bored quite through. Surely that must make a difference, must it not?
A jackal barked. But this, they knew, must be illusion.