This must have served, for when the voice that was far away shouted again "Sigurd! Sigurd!" the voice that was near at hand answered, "Coming." And a moment later, Jason heard the sounds of hoofs going off from him as before.
Then Michael Sunlocks awoke to full consciousness, and realized his state, and what had befallen him, and where he was, and who was with him. And first he was overwhelmed by a tempest of agony at feeling that he was a lost and forlorn man, blind and maimed, as it seemed at that time, for all the rest of his life to come. After that he cried for water, saying that his throat was baked and his tongue cracked, and Jason replied that all the water they had found that day they had been forced to leave behind them where they could never return to it. Then he poured out a torrent of hot reproaches, calling on Jason to say why he had been brought out there to go mad of thirst; and Jason listened to all and made no answer, but stood with bent head, and quivering lips, and great tear-drops on his rugged cheeks.
The spasm of agony and anger soon passed, as Jason knew it must, and then, full of remorse, Sunlocks saw everything in a new light.
"What time of day is it?" he asked.
"Evening," said Jason.
"How many hours since we left Krisuvik?"
"Ten."
"How many miles from there!"
"Twenty."
"Have you carried me all the way?"