After breakfast a strange and superstitious idea occurred to the Professor. He had read somewhere that crocodiles were the natural avengers of all the insults offered to Egypt by barbarian travellers. It appeared to him that there was some sense in this, for if crocodiles didn’t serve to avenge something or other he was convinced they could serve no purpose at all. Then he reflected that he had passed without notice the statue of Memnon, the colossal tenor who had just commenced his morning cavatina under the influence of the sun’s rays. The divine Osimandias and the Pharaohs, as represented by the sublime pyramids, had been treated with similar disrespect; and the Professor now repented his irreverence, and vowed to kiss the big toe of Memnon, the tallest tenor in the world, if he only escaped his present danger.
After this vow the illustrious Dummkopf became more tranquil. He looked down at the crocodile, but the vow had produced no effect upon him. He did not even seem to have heard it. There he was still, watching patiently for his prey.
Dummkopf was now dying for a mouthful of cold water. Dates possess the property of producing thirst. Hence they are very desirable at dessert if the host wishes his guests to pass the bottle freely, but not otherwise. For a professor at the top of a palm-tree from which he is unable to descend, they form the most unsuitable food that can be conceived; but Herr Dummkopf had no choice—he had either to eat dates or to die of inanition. He was like Tantalus: the river was flowing at his feet, and he was unable to get a drop of water wherewith to moisten his parched lips. He again compared his position with that of Robinson Crusoe, and found that all the advantage was on the side of the latter. It was true Robinson Crusoe passed a night on a tree, but he came down the next morning, killed parrots, made them into fricasseed fowl, drank rum and water, walked about with an umbrella over his head, met no crocodiles, and found a man Friday. “Happy Robinson Crusoe!” exclaimed Dummkopf; “and yet he complained. I should like to know what he’d have done in my place, on the top of a palm-tree.”
Suddenly the sky became overcast, and the Professor was filled with a joyful anticipation of rain. He had already joined his hands so as to form as large a receptacle as possible for the drops, and was promising himself a regular aquatic orgie, when all at once he remembered that in Egypt it never rains.
The crocodile seemed to understand the sufferings of the Weisstadt Tantalus. He walked to the edge of the river and swallowed several quarts of water, at the same time casting ironical glances at the unfortunate Professor. The pleasantry of masters is always intolerable. Dummkopf was disgusted and enraged; but this only increased his thirst.
He cast his eyes along the Nile, in hopes of discovering some providential sail. But then he remembered that in that part of the river, above the rapids, there was scarcely a chance of meeting with a boat of any kind. A death-like solitude reigned around, and nothing was to be seen but dark ruins, among which an occasional ibis, motionless, like a mark of admiration, was perched.
Again the Professor turned his thoughts towards Robinson Crusoe. “Certainly,” he said to himself, “if Crusoe had been in my position, at the top of a palm-tree, he would somehow or other have found means to obtain a drop of water. Come now, how would he have done it?”
Dummkopf’s mouth was on fire, and there was the great Nile rolling calmly and majestically before him.
At last Necessity, who is known to be the mother of Invention, brought her ingenious child to his aid.
The Professor clapped his hands. He had discovered an hydraulic process which would enable him to appease his thirst. How little is required to give joy to poor humankind! Here is a man on a palm-tree—a dying man who cannot escape from the jaws of a crocodile—and because he has discovered a very equivocal means of obtaining a few drops of brackish water with which to moisten his parched lips, he is convulsed with delight.