A great lizard, sleeping in the corner, awoke and darted away; a small bird, whose nest was in the thatch, scolded shrilly. But Johnny heard nothing, saw nothing.
When at last he summoned up strength enough to drag himself to a corner and upon a bed of rotting mats, he murmured again:
“Home! Home! How good to be home!”
In the deserted cabin was dampness, mold and desolation. Only one overwrought by peril and trouble, or made delirious by a burning fever, could have thought of it as home. Home? Here there was neither water, food nor friends.
Once, having come out of his delirium, he managed to grope about until he had found a mouldy gourd. With this in hand he dragged himself on hands and knees to the river. Here in his eagerness for water he all but pitched head-foremost into the stream. As it was, he left a print of his hand in the plastic ooze on the bank.
The gourd he filled with water. Having spilled most of it on the way back, in a fever of haste lest the rest escape, he drank it greedily, then sank back on his musty little bed to dream delirious dreams.
In his dreams, with Pant by his side, he pursued a red gleam that, while growing brighter, appeared always to elude them. “The red lure. The red lure!” he repeated over and over.
Next morning found him too weak to rise or to think. He had only strength to breathe. He could only stare helplessly at the dull brown roof of the hut and hope for things that never come.
But now the scene was changed. Instead of the smell of decay all about him, there was the perfume of apple blossoms. Over his head the white and pink glory of Springtime blended with white patches of sunshine. Beneath him was a soft bed of grass; above him apple trees and sky. From far and near came the warble of thrushes, the chirp of robins, the shrill challenge of woodpeckers. He was once more in the orchard that witnessed his boyhood. Buried deep in clover, he was sensing the joy of Spring.
Then the hot light of a new day dragged him back to waking consciousness. Dreams vanished. Dull reality hung about him. He tried to lift himself upon an elbow. He failed. Could he lift a hand? He could not. His eyes closed from the mere force of this effort, and remained closed.