A long pause ensued.
Meanwhile the sun went down and the night clothed the landscape in darkness. The heavens became dark blue. In the southern sky shone the cross. Over the plain glittered myriads of stars. The moon rose and its light pervaded the darkness, and in the west the pale twilight of the zodiac spread far and wide. The atmosphere became a huge glittering flood. An even more brilliant glow spread over the landscape. The palanquin, which they forgot to remove from King’s back, and the tents shone as if made of white marble. The world sank into deathlike silence; sleep enveloped the earth. And in the midst of nature’s tranquil peacefulness Stasch and his followers writhed in pain, waiting for death. On the silver background of the twilight the huge form of the elephant stood out distinctly. The moonlight illuminated the tent, Stasch’s and Nell’s white clothes, the spaces between the bushes of heather, the dark, cramped, and distorted bodies of the negroes and the baggage-strewn ground. Saba sat on his hind legs in front of the children and howled sadly with head turned toward the moon. Not a thought was left in the soul of Stasch—nothing but dumb despair. He felt there was no help, no way out, that all their terrible fatigue and hardships, all the sufferings and courageous deeds done on the terrible journey—from Medinet to Khartum, from Khartum to Fashoda, from Fashoda to the unknown lake—had been utterly useless, and that they could not escape the inexorable end of the struggle—death. It appeared all the more dreadful to him since it would come on the last stretch of the journey—at whose end lay the ocean. Oh, he could never take Nell to the coast, nor put her on the ship for Port Said; he could never give her back to her father, nor fall into his father’s arms and hear him say that he had acted like a brave boy and a true Pole! It was all over! In a few days the sun would shine but on lifeless bodies; then it would dry them up like the mummies that sleep the everlasting sleep in Egyptian museums!
His brain was turning from the pain and heat and fever; he saw visions of death struggles, and there came to him strange sounds. He distinctly heard the voices of the Sudanese and the Bedouins crying, “Yalla! Yalla!” as they mercilessly whipped their frightened camels. He saw Idris and Gebhr. The Mahdi smiled at him with his thick lips and asked: “Will you drink of the fountain of truth?” A lion standing on a rock gazed at him, then Linde gave him a jar of quinine and said: “Make haste, for the little one is dying!” Then he only saw a pale, sweet little face and two little hands stretched toward him.
Suddenly he shuddered; for a moment consciousness came back to him—close to his ear Nell’s soft, sad, pleading voice whispered:
“Stasch—water!”
She, as did Kali, rested her hope on him. But as he had given her the last drops of water twelve hours before, he now controlled himself and cried out with a voice full of emotion, pain, and despair:
“Oh, Nell, I only pretended to drink! For the last three days I have not tasted a drop!”
And holding his head in despair, he ran away that he might not see how she suffered. Blindly up and down between the tufts of grass and heather he ran, until his strength was utterly exhausted and he sank down on one of the bushes. No weapon of any kind was in his hand. A leopard, lion, or even a large hyena would have found him easy prey. But only Saba came running up, sniffing at him and howling, as if he, too, were asking for help.
No one came to their assistance. Only the calm, indifferent moon looked down upon them from above. For a long time the boy lay as if lifeless. When a cooler breath of wind, unexpectedly blowing from the east, restored him to his senses, he raised himself and tried to stand and go to Nell.