Very wearily he opened his eyes. Could it be that some one was pouring water down his throat? Some one was bathing his face.
“He’s coming to,” said a voice in his ear. “By Jove, it was a narrow shave. The other poor chap’s done for, isn’t he, Ned?”
“Quite dead. He went mad evidently, clean off his head. Why, the poor chap had begun on his own grave.”
When Anderson came to himself he found he had been picked up by the other exploring party.
“We picked up your tracks away by the ‘dead finish’ there,” said the leader, “and I thought it must be pretty near up with you. You ‘ve had the devil’s own luck, mate. Why, you were within five miles of Gerring Gerring Water, and over by the ‘dead finish’ you passed within three miles of a very decent waterhole, quite good enough to have kept life within you. You shot the horse?”
“My mate did. He was mad, poor fellow.”
“Poor beggar, he seems to have had a bad time, but it’s all over now.”
It was indeed all over now. They had wrapped him in a blanket and were digging a shallow grave. He had begun it himself, they said, and had been digging with his long knife, though whether it was for water, or whether it was really intended for a grave, no one could now say. His sufferings were ended.
They left him there in the desert, the young fellow who had fought so hard for his life and set so much store by it, and as soon as Anderson was a little recovered, set out for Yerlo again.
It was over a week before he reached the station, so far had he wandered out of the track, and as he rode up to the house a stable boy lounged up to him.