Harry agreed therefore to keep watch while I continued the operations on which I was engaged. I soon got some forked sticks, which I ran into the ground to hold the spits, and on these I placed the venison to roast, but hungry as I was I felt that without water I could scarcely get down the food I was cooking. Evening was approaching.
“I say, Fred, if those fellows don’t come soon, we must set off by ourselves, and look out for water. Perhaps some may be found among the rocks, or if not, we must cut some wooden spades and dig for it. Those deer wouldn’t be inhabiting these parts if water wasn’t in the neighbourhood.”
“It will be too late to commence any search tonight,” I observed. “It is already nearly dark, and the chances are that the lion you saw just now will pounce down upon us, if we go far from the fire. I would rather endure thirst than run that risk.”
“Still we must have water,” exclaimed Harry; “but you stay here and look after the venison, and I’ll just wander to a short distance. I do not suppose the brute will find me; and perhaps, you know, it was not a lion after all I saw: it might have been a buffalo or a brindled gnu.”
“You said positively it was a lion,” I remarked; “for your own sake, as well as mine, I beg that you will not wander from the camp.”
Still Harry, pointing to his mouth, insisted on going. Just as he was about to set off, a loud roar, not twenty paces off, reached our ears.
“What do you say now?” I asked. “You don’t mean to assert that that was the cry either of an ostrich or a bullfrog.”
“I wish that it were the latter,” he answered; “for then there would be a chance of finding water. However, I’ll stay in camp and try to endure my thirst until those fellows come back—and they’re pretty sure to find water.”
I did not like to say that I was not quite certain on that subject. I had hopes, however, that even should they have failed to find it, we should not perish, as I trusted before long we might have a shower of rain, although none had as yet fallen from the cloudy sky. Some venison which I had put close to the fire was by this time cooked, but it was with the greatest difficulty that we could get down even a few mouthfuls.
“I cannot eat another morsel,” cried Harry, putting down his knife. “If those fellows don’t arrive soon, dark as it is, I must set off by myself to try and find water; depend upon it, there is some not far off, or that lion would not come here,” and he threw himself, utterly overcome, on the ground.