"But half a dozen miles is nothing to me. Give me that bottle. I'll be back before sunrise." He paused a moment, and then as he saw the expression in the other's face he added impetuously, "I swear it. Good heavens, Lumley, you don't think I would desert you? You don't think that?"
The fury that had once or twice swept away Lumley's coolness had come upon him again, and he no longer cared to restrain it. He lifted himself, shaking one clenched fist towards Gray.
"Do you think I'd trust you for a single minute, you smooth-tongued hypocrite!" he screamed. "You'd be glad enough to leave me lyin' here, wouldn't you? But you're not going to get the chance, Mr. Gentleman Gray. We'll stick together, like partners should. The crows sha'n't feast on me alone, I'll tell you that."
Gray made no attempt to answer him just then. When Lumley stopped speaking and sank back with a groan of pain on the sand, Gray turned and walked away a few paces, and stood trying to get some mastery over the trembling sick misery that seemed ready to overpower him. There was no anger in his heart against the man whose deep, laboured breaths he could still hear behind him. It was only natural, Gray said to himself, that he should believe him capable of deserting him. He had deserved to be thought willing to commit even such a baseness as that.
Yet if he could not convince Lumley that he was to be trusted, there was nothing but death for both of them. Gray had felt incapable of reasoning with his companion for the moment, incapable even of speech. He had felt ready to give up the struggle—to let it all end there. But as he stood fighting manfully with his weakness, strength came to him—power to will and act as a brave man should. The far-off moon-clear skyline, the stars faintly shining in the upper blue, the solemn moonlight, the rustle of the wind in the dry grasses, all seemed to have a message for him—to whisper hope, to lift him out of himself, to give him courage to make another fight for life.
He went back to Lumley, and sat down again where he had sat before.
"Listen to me a moment, Lumley," he said. "You say you know where water is?"
"Say I know? I do know, partner; you may lay your life to that," responded Lumley harshly.
He had been lying watching Gray, wondering what his next move would be. Gray's quiet manner was a surprise to him.
"Very well, you do know. Now, I will tell you what I am going to do. I shall wait a few moments for you to tell me where it lies—"