“This is your fault,” I said.
“You are cruel,” she answered, “and you speak thus because you hate me.”
“Perhaps I am cruel, lady. Would not you be cruel if you saw the friend you love perishing through a woman’s folly?”
“Are you the only one that can love?” she whispered.
“Unless we can rouse him the white man will die,” said Zibalbay.
“Oh! awake,” cried Maya despairingly, placing her lips close to the señor’s ear. “They say that I have killed you, awake, awake!”
He seemed to hear her, for, though his eyes did not open, he smiled faintly and murmured, “I will try.” Then with our help he struggled from the ground and began to walk once more, but like a man who is drunk. Thrice he staggered backwards and forwards along the path our feet had worn. Then he fell again, and, putting our hands upon his breast, we could feel the contractions of his heart growing weaker every moment, till at last they seemed to die away. But of a sudden, when we had already abandoned hope, it pulsed violently, and from every pore of his skin, which till now had been parched and dry, there burst so profuse a perspiration that in the light of the rising moon we could see it running down his face.
“I think that the white man will live now; he has conquered the poison,” said Zibalbay quietly, and hearing his words I returned thanks to God in my heart.
Then we laid him in a hammock, piling blankets and serapes over him till at length the perspiration ceased, all the fluid in his body having evaporated, taking the venom with it.
For an hour or more he slept, then awoke and asked for water in a faint voice. We, who were watching, looked at each other in dismay, for we had not a single drop to give, and this we were obliged to tell him. He groaned and was silent for a while, then said: