of the old legend
about carrying the well to the pitcher, and making use of his unsheathed
cutlass, a few strokes resulted in his hacking away a portion of the
rough leafy thatching and admitting a broad band of light right across
his comrade's reclining figure.

A few touches convinced the amateur surgeon that the injury was too
tightly bound, and after removing the covering he set to work and bathed
the wound with the soft cool water till the temperature was reduced,
re-bound it tenderly, and soon after had the satisfaction of noting that
his patient's irritation and evident pain had grown less, while when he
raised his head and applied the freshly-drawn nut-full of water to the
poor lad's lips he drank with avidity, and then sank back with a sigh of
relief. The muttering grew less frequent, and he sank into a quiet
sleep.

It was Murray's turn to sigh now that he had achieved thus much; but it
was not with relief, for he was dripping with perspiration, the heat was
dense within the hut, and a sense of faint weariness stole over him of
so strange a nature that it seemed to him that his senses were passing
away.

"I am going to be bad now," he thought, feeling that perhaps in spite of
pluck and effort his time had come.

"What will poor Roberts do?" he felt in a queer, strange way, and
somehow it never seemed in the midst of the feeble dizzy sensation that
he was of any consequence himself.

"How hot!" he muttered feebly, and he made an effort to crawl out of the
hut, and then on and on almost unconsciously until he had dragged
himself to where a bright ray of light flashed from the glowing surface
of the clear amber water and played upon the great, green, glossy leaves
of a banana plant, one from whose greeny-yellow bunch of fruit he had
plucked the night before.

That all seemed dream-like, but it did not trouble him, for his nature
had prompted him to thrust forward his lips till they touched the water
just where the ray shot forth glowing light and life as well, for he
drank and drank, and as he imbibed the fluid, which looked like fire but
tasted like water, the feeling of faintness grew less, his senses began
to return, and he drew back to lie over with a sigh and gaze dreamily at
the great arum-like leaves of the banana and the huge bunch of green and
yellow finger-shaped fruit.

"Finger-like--thumb-like," he muttered, "just as if it was so many huge
hands resting one upon the other."

Murray sighed