“We are going to have rain,” said Carmen.
“I hope it will rain in bucketfuls,” was my answer, for I had drunk nothing since we left San Felipe, and the run, together with the high temperature and the heat of the fire, had given me an intolerable thirst. I spoke with difficulty, my swollen tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and I would gladly have given ten years of my life for one glass of cold water.
Carmen, whose sufferings were as great as my own, echoed my hope. And it was not long in being gratified, for even as we gazed upward a flash of lightning split the clouds asunder; peal of thunder followed on peal, the rain came down not in drops nor bucketfuls but in sheets, and with weight and force sufficient to beat a child or a weakling to the earth, It was a veritable godsend; we caught the beautiful cool water in our hands and drank our fill.
In less than an hour not a trace of the fire could be seen—nor anything else. The darkness had become so dense that we feared to move lest we might perchance step into one of the boiling springs, fall into the jaws of a jaguar, or set foot on a poisonous snake. So we stayed where we were, whiles lying on the flooded ground, whiles standing up or walking a few paces in the rain, which continued to fall until the rising of the sun, when it ceased as suddenly as it had begun.
The moor had been turned into a smoking swamp, with a blackened forest on one side and a wall of living green on the other. The wild animals had vanished.
“Let us go!” said Carmen.
When we reached the trees we took off our clothes a second time, hung them on a branch, and sat in the sun till they dried.
“I suppose it is no use thinking about breakfast till we get to a house or the camp, wherever that may be?” I observed, as we resumed our journey.
“Well, I don’t know. What do you say about a cup of milk to begin with?”
“There is nothing I should like better—to begin with—but where is the cow?”