“Why not, Lady? I should be glad to escape the task, but this is a question of life or death.”
“Yes,” she answered, “and because it is a question of life or death, Don Ignatio, I have already climbed that hideous place, and—here is the water,”—and she fell forward and swooned upon the ground.
I said nothing. I was too much amazed, and, indeed, too much ashamed, to speak. Lifting Maya’s senseless form, I placed her in a hammock that was slung close by. Then I took the water-skin and a leather cup, and ran with it to my friend’s side. By now the señor was lost in a coma and lay still, only moaning from time to time. Undoing the mouth of the skin, I poured out a cupful of water, with which I began to sprinkle his brow and to moisten his cracked lips. At the touch and smell of the fluid a change came over the face of the dying man, the empty look left it, and the eyes opened.
“That was water,” he muttered, “I can taste it.” Then he saw the cup, and the sight seemed to give him a sudden strength, for he stretched out his arms and, snatching it from my hand, he drained it in three gulps.
“More,” he gasped, “more.”
But as yet I would give him no more, though he prayed for it piteously, and when I did allow him to drink again it was in sips only. For an hour he sipped thus till at length even his thirst was partially satisfied, and the shrunken cheeks began to fill out and the dull eyes to brighten.
“That water has saved my life,” he whispered; “where did it come from?”
“I will tell you to-morrow,” I answered; “sleep now if you can.”
CHAPTER XIII.
IGNATIO’S OATH
At sunrise on the following day I lit a fire by which to prepare soup for the señor, who still slept, and as I was engaged thus I saw the Lady Maya walking towards me, and noticed that her hands and feet were swollen.