“Look at that, now!” said Peter. “Oh! his head must be awfully bad inside as well as out. Why, if he isn’t asleep again!”
It was growing dusk, when, feeling faint, hot, and exhausted, Peter Pegg stood over the basket, looked into it longingly, and then glanced at his wounded companion.
“He’s sure not to want anything to eat,” he said to himself. “A drop of water’s about all he will touch when he comes to; and it’s lucky I held that cocoa-nut shell tight, or it would all have gone.” He turned to the jar, into which he had poured back the contents of the nearly full shell. “Oh dear! To think I let that great, gorging fire-hose of a hanimal suck up nearly all that beautiful water, when this place has been like an oven and made me as thirsty as if I had been living on commissariat bacon. Can’t help it. He’s sure to want a drink when he wakes up. I must leave that.”
As he spoke he turned the jar sideways, and the ruddy light which filtered in through the cracks showed him the cool, clear fluid in the dark bottom of the vessel. He dipped in the shell, and found he could fill it easily.
“More than I thought,” he said joyfully. “Why, I might have half-a-shellful, and then there would be quite a shell and a half left for the young governor. Can’t help it; I must,” he cried impatiently. “My throat’s as dry as a sawpit.”
Dipping the shell as he still held the jar sideways he brought it up again more than half-full.
“Too much,” he said softly. “Fair-play’s a jewel;” and carefully and slowly he let a portion of the precious water trickle back into the bottom of the jar.
“That’s about half,” he said, with a judicial look. “Now then, sip it, mate, and make it go as far as you can.”
Raising the cup to his lips, he slowly imbibed the tepid liquid till the very last drop had been drained out of the shell. Then replacing it where it had been before, he uttered a deep sigh.
“I never used to think water was so beautiful,” he said softly. “I forget what them people asked for when they had three wishes, but I know what I should wish for now. It would be for that there jar brim-full of cold water, and me to have a throat as long as a boa-constructor, so that I could feel it all go gently down.”