He was but newly awakened, and looked at her vacantly.
“Tell me, Maya,” he asked, “what has happened?”
“Last evening,” she began, “in picking a flower for me you were bitten by a snake, and very nearly died.”
“I know,” he answered. “Without doubt I should have died had you not sucked the wound and tied a bandage round my wrist, for that grey snake is the deadliest in the country. Go on.”
“After the danger of the poison was past you became thirsty, so thirsty that you were dying of it, and there was no water to give you.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, “it was agony; I pray that I may never suffer so again. But I drank water and lived. Who brought it to me?”
“My father started on to the next camping-place, where there is a pool,” she answered.
“Has he returned?”
“No, not yet.”
“Then he cannot have brought the water. Where did it come from?”