“Indeed I should, sir.”
“Ah, well! we’ll see about that; but work first, Mark. We must get a load of birds or a pig.”
“Think there are pigs, sir?”
“Can’t say. I haven’t seen a sign of one yet. If it is a part of some great island we may find deer.”
They tramped on, hoping to find a stream, but another two miles were traversed before they came upon a rushing rivulet, gurgling down from among piled-up masses of blackish vesicular rock, which the major at once dubbed scoria.
“Now for a good drink,” he said. “I’m thirsty;” and they both lay down to drink from a pool of the loveliest nature, so clear was the water, so beautiful the ferns and other growth that overhung.
But at the first mouthful both rose, spitting it out, and ready to express their disgust.
“Why, it’s bitter, and salt, and physicky as a mineral spring,” said the major.
“And it’s quite hot,” said Mark. “Ugh! what stuff!”
It was disappointing, for they were both suffering from thirst; but it was evident that to penetrate the jungle from where they stood would be next to impossible, so craggy and rocky was the ground, while, as after struggling on for about a couple of hundred yards, they found the water grown already so hot that it was almost too much for their hands, they concluded that if they persevered they would find it boiling—an interesting fact for a student of the wonders of nature, but an unsatisfactory matter for a thirsty man.