IN THE LAZARET
It seemed to Martin he was wandering in a vast and thirsty desert. To the very core of his being he was dry. Drink! Drink! With his whole life he lusted drink. He waded through that parched world, burning up with thirst.
Despite his efforts, his mouth sagged open, and his tongue, swollen to prodigious size, burst through its proper limits and hung down upon his breast, broiling in the rays of the hot sun. To make the keener his thirst, there lay before him a delectable oasis, a patch of moist green, with playing fountains and rippling cascades plainly visible to his tortured gaze. He struggled toward it, and always, as he neared it, some malign influence clutched his wrists—which unaccountably stuck out behind him—and jerked him back.
For ages and ages he waded through the dry sand toward the water, and ever the Evil One who controlled his wrists kept him from attaining his desire. Water! Water! He was in agony for water. Water! Would he never reach that blessed water?
Then something cold, slimy, horrible, ran over his face, and the loathful thrill he felt shocked him into reality.
The desert vanished. He tried to move and sat up. He heard a frenzied squeaking, and a light scampering on wood, and he knew that a rat had run over his body.
All the sensations of consciousness assailed him abruptly. He heard the rats, and a deep rumble near by; he saw dimly in the darkness; he smelled of mingled odors of provisions; he felt thirst. Though he was out of the desert, he was still consumed with thirst.
He sat quietly for a moment while his confused thoughts gradually arrayed themselves in orderly fashion. He knew where he was instantly—the jumble of casks, and kegs, and boxes, that surrounded him, and which he could dimly perceive in the gloom, and the smell, told him he was in the ship's lazaret. How he came to be there was as yet concealed behind a haze that clouded his memory.
Next, he became aware that something was the matter with his arms. They ached cruelly. After a moment's experimenting and reflection the truth came to him with shocking force—his arms were drawn behind him, and his wrists were handcuffed together. The shock of that discovery dissipated the fog over his mind. He began to remember.
But while his wits groped, he was sharply conscious of his thirst. It blazed. His tongue felt like a piece of swollen leather. He felt pain. His throat was throbbing with pain. Water! Water was the pressing need, the most important thing in existence.