The fourth day came,—and Herndon at last stopped short, and said, in his steady, immobile voice,—
"Zeitzer, you must have made this grand discovery in your dreams. There is no Nile up this way,—and our water-skins are almost dry. We had better return and follow up the course of the river where we left it. If we again fail, I shall return to Egypt to carry out my plan for converting the Pyramids into ice-houses. They are excellently well adapted for the purpose, and in that country a good supply of ice is a desideratum. Indeed, if my plan meets with half the success it deserves, the antiquaries two centuries hence will conclude that ice was the original use of those structures."
"Shade of Cheops, forbid!" I exclaimed.
"Cheops be hanged!" returned my irreverent companion. "The world suffers too much now from overcrowded population to permit a man to claim standing-room three thousand years after his death,—especially when the claim is for some acres apiece, as in the case of these pyramid-builders. Will you go back with me?"
I declined for various reasons, not all very clear even to myself; but I was convinced that his peculiar enticements were the cause of our failure, and I hated him unreasonably for it. I longed to get rid of him, and of his influence over me. Fool that I was! I was the sinner, and not he; for he could not see, because he was born blind, while I fell with my eyes open. I still held on to the vague hope, that, were I alone, I might again find that mysterious lake; for I knew I had not dreamed. So we parted.
But we two (my servant and I) were not left long alone in the Desert. The next day a party of natives surprised us, and, after some desperate fighting, we were taken prisoners, sold as slaves from tribe to tribe into the interior, and at length fell into the hands of some traders on the western coast, who gave us our freedom. Unwilling, however, to return home without some definite success, I made several voyages in a merchant-vessel. But I was born for one purpose; failing in that, I had nothing further to live for. The core of my life was touched at that fatal river, and a subtile disease has eaten it out till nothing but the rind is left. A wave, gathering to the full its mighty strength, had upreared itself for a moment majestically above its fellows,—falling, its scattered spray can only impotently sprinkle the dull, dreary shore. Broken and nerveless, I can only wait the lifting of the curtain, quietly wondering if a failure be always irretrievable,—if a prize once lost can never again be found.
AN EXPERIENCE.
A common spring of water, sudden welling,
Unheralded, from some unseen impelling,
Unrecognized, began his life alone.
A rare and haughty vine looked down above him,
Unclasped her climbing glory, stooped to love him,
And wreathed herself about his curb of stone.
Ah, happy fount! content, in upward smiling,
To feel no life but in her fond beguiling,
To see no world but through her veil of green!
And happy vine, secure, in downward gazing,
To find one theme his heart forever praising,—
The crystal cup a throne, and she the queen!
I speak, I grew about him, ever dearer;
The water rose to meet me, ever nearer;
The water passed one day this curb of stone.
Was it a weak escape from righteous boundings,
Or yet a righteous scorn of false surroundings?
I only know I live my life alone.