The Hot Swamp

by R. M. Ballantyne

Bladud’s anxiety was not removed but deepened when he heard this, for he called to remembrance the occasion when he had rescued one of the little pigs and carried it for some distance in his arms.

“And, do you know,” continued the lad, “I have observed a strange thing. I have seen that many of the pigs, affected with this complaint, have gone down to the place where the hot waters rise, and, after bathing there, have returned all covered with mud, and these pigs seem to have got better of the disease, while many of those which did not go down to the swamp have died.”

“That is strange indeed,” returned the prince; “I must see to this, for if these waters cure the pigs, why not the dog?”

“Ay,” rejoined Cormac, “and why not the man?”

“Because my disease is well known to be incurable.”

“Are you sure?”

“We can hardly be sure of anything, not even of killing our mid-day meal,” rejoined the prince. “See, there goes a bird that is big enough to do for both of us. Try your hand.”

“That will be but losing an opportunity, for, as you know, I am not a good marksman,” returned the youth, fitting an arrow quickly to his bow nevertheless, and discharging it. Although the bird in question was large and not far off, the arrow missed the mark, but startled the bird so that it took wing. Before it had risen a yard from the ground, however, an arrow from Bladud’s bow transfixed it.

That night, after the bird had been eaten, when Brownie was busy with the scraps, and Cormac had retired to his couch in the firewood booth, Bladud lay in his hut unable to sleep because of what he had heard and seen that day. “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”—not less in the olden time than now. At all events it welled up in the breast of the royal outcast with unusual power as he waited anxiously for the first dawn of day.

Up to this time, although living within a few miles of it, the prince had not paid more than one or two visits to the Hot Swamp, because birds and other game did not seem to inhabit the place, and the ground was difficult to traverse. He had, of course, speculated a good deal as to the cause of the springs, but had not come to any conclusions more satisfactory than have been arrived at by the scientific minds of modern days. That heat of some sort was the cause applied in one fashion or another to the water so as to make it almost boil he had no manner of doubt, but what caused the heat he could not imagine, and it certainly did not occur to him that the interior of the earth was a lake of fire—the lovely world of vision being a mere crust. At least, if it did, he was never heard to say so.