“Thank Heaven!” he said; “hold it to my lips if you can.”
The dwarf lifted it with a trembling hand, and Leonard gulped down the fiery liquor.
“That’s better,” he said; “take some yourself.”
“Nay, Baas, I have sworn to touch drink no more,” Otter answered, looking at the gourd longingly; “besides you and the Shepherdess will want it all. I have some food here and I will eat.”
“What happened to Soa, Otter?”
“I could not see rightly, Baas, I was too frightened, much more frightened than I had been when I rode the stone myself; but I think that her legs caught in the ice on this side of the hole, and so she fell. It was a good end for her, the vicious old cow!” he added, with a touch of satisfaction.
“It was very near being a bad end for us,” answered Leonard, “but we have managed to come out of it alive somehow. Not for all the rubies in the world would I cross that place again.”
“Nor I, Baas. Wow! it was awful. Now my stomach went through my head, and now my head went through my stomach, and the air was red and green and blue, and devils shouted at me out of it. Yes, and when I came to the hole, there I saw the Water-Dweller all fashioned in fire waiting with an open mouth to eat me. It was the drink that made me think of these things, Baas, and that is why I have sworn to touch it no more. Yes, I swore it as I flew through the air and saw the flaming Water-Dweller beneath me. And now, Baas, I am a little rested, so let us try and wake up the Shepherdess, and get us gone.”
“Yes,” said Leonard, “though I am sure I do not know where we are to go to. It can’t be far, for I am nearly spent.”
Then crawling to where Juanna lay wrapped in her cloak, Otter poured some of the native spirit down her throat while Leonard rubbed her hands. Presently this treatment produced its effect, for she sat up with a start, and seeing the ice before her, began to shriek, saying, “Take me away; I can’t do it, Leonard, I can’t indeed.”