He thought at first that something had gone wrong with his eyes, for everywhere he looked the sand seemed to be jumping and skipping and burying itself in itself. And then from the innumerable little flecks of white, bobbing spasmodically all over the place, he perceived that these were rabbits, and the mate was in among them, knocking them on the head as fast as his stick could whirl. By the time Wulfrey reached him he was sitting in the sand, skinning one with his knife, and half a dozen more lay round him.
"Better than roots and seaweed," he said, as he hacked the first in pieces and stuffed some into his mouth and handed some to Wulfrey. "There's millions of 'em. We won't starve," and he started skinning another.
Raw meat was a novelty, to Wulfrey at all events but baby-rabbit flesh is eatable, even raw, and it put new life into them both.
The little valley in which they sat was like an oasis in the sandy desert outside. For here, among the wire-grass grew innumerable small creeping-plants and that so sturdily though so modestly that, in spite of the vast horde of rabbits, the whole place was carpeted with green, and right in the centre, where the ground was lowest and the undergrowth thickest and darkest, was a considerable pool of rainwater, which they found brackish but drinkable.
"All we want now is shelter and fire, and we'll live like kings and fighting-cocks," said Macro, when he had time for anything but rabbit-flesh, and lay back comfortably distent.
"And where shall we find shelter and fire in this place?"
"Man! There's more'n we'll ever need in all our lives, over yonder. But it'll keep.... I'm not for going back there this day anyway. To-morrow, mebbe,——" he said drowsily, and presently they were both fast asleep again. And the rabbits came out at sunset and hopped about them, and sniffed them with quivering noses and disrelish, and the heavy dew fell on them, but they never woke. For Nature had now got all she needed for the reparation of the previous waste, and she was busily at work making good while they slept.
XVIII
Morning broke dull, and heavy. The air was mild but full of moisture, and they were chilled with their long sleep in the open.
"Gosh! but I'd like to feel dry again," said Macro, as they sat munching raw rabbit for breakfast. "D'you feel like going out yonder?"