"My dear uncle," I exclaimed, and the big tears rolled down my hot and feverish cheeks.
"Yes, my poor boy, I knew that when you reached this place, this crossroad in the earth, you would fall down half dead, and I saved my last drop of water in order to restore you."
"Thanks," I cried; "thanks from my heart."
As little as my thirst was really quenched, I had nevertheless partially recovered my strength. The contracted muscles of my throat relaxed—and the inflammation of my lips in some measure subsided. At all events, I was able to speak.
"Well," I said, "there can be no doubt now as to what we have to do. Water has utterly failed us; our journey is therefore at an end. Let us return."
While I spoke thus, my uncle evidently avoided my face: he held down his head; his eyes were turned in every possible direction but the right one.
"Yes," I continued, getting excited by my own words, "we must go back to Sneffels. May heaven give us strength to enable us once more to revisit the light of day. Would that we now stood on the summit of the crater."
"Go back," said my uncle, speaking to himself, "and must it be so?"
"Go back—yes, and without losing a single moment," I vehemently cried.
For some moments there was silence under that dark and gloomy vault.