“Now, sir, you take the lanthorn; I’ll take the buckets. Lor’, how swimmy I do feel. Not from having so much water, is it?”
The man’s words jarred on Syd. They sounded so careless from one who but a short time back was dying. But with a sailor, as soon as the danger is past, he is careless again, and the man was all eagerness now to help his messmates.
Syd did not find it easy to descend the rope-ladder, but he got down in safety, and then the difficult ascent of the rocks began.
It was now dark, and he trembled lest they should miss their way and be wandering about for hours, while the poor creatures they had left were still in agony.
But after one or two false slips they hit upon the right gap, as they thought, and were about to descend when Syd stopped short.
“This can’t be the place,” he said; “I don’t hear the water gurgling.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking, sir,” said Rogers. “Let’s try again.”
Weak and weary as he was, Syd’s heart sank, but their next attempt was successful, the faint sound of water trickling far below acting as their guide, and they found the place, descended carefully, not seeing their danger, to where the water gurgled musically from the rock into a little pool some five feet long.
Here both drank long and deeply of the delicious draught, after filling their buckets, finding it no easy task to climb back with them to where they stood in the bright, clear star-shine, and begin their journey back down to the bottom of the rope-ladder, where Rogers set down his pail, climbed up, lowered down a rope, and hauled both the buckets up without spilling a drop. Then while he attended to the men with one, Syd hurried up to the little hospital with the other, to find his patients sufficiently recovered to drink with avidity as much water as he would let them have.