ledge shelved down to the surface of the lake, and in a moment he had
reached this spot, and, throwing himself down on his breast, he plunged
his face into the water and began drinking like a thirsty horse.
Presently he rose to his knees with a great sigh of satisfaction.

"Oh, captain," he cried, "it is cold and delicious. I believe that in one
hour more I should have died of thirst."

But the captain did not answer, nor did he move from the spot where he
stood. His thoughts whirled around in his mind like chaff in a
winnowing-machine. Water! A lake in the bosom of the rocks! Half an hour
ago he must have been standing over it as he scrambled up the hillside.
Visions that he had had of the morrow, when all their eyes should be
standing out of their faces, like the eyes of shipwrecked sailors he had
seen in boats, came back to him, and other visions of his mate and his
men toiling southward for perhaps a hundred miles without reaching a port
or a landing, and then the long, long delay before a vessel could be
procured. And here was water!

Ralph stood beside him for an instant. "Captain," he cried, "I am
going to get a pail, and take some to Edna and Mrs. Cliff." And then
he was gone.

Recalled thus to the present, the captain stepped back. He must do
something--he must speak to some one. He must take some advantage of this
wonderful, this overpowering discovery. But before he could bring his
mind down to its practical workings, Maka had clutched him by the coat.

"Cap'n," he said, "I must tell you. I must speak it. I must tell you now,
quick. Wait! Don't go!"

CHAPTER V

THE RACKBIRDS

The new African was sitting on the ground, as far back from the edge of
the ledge as he could get, shivering and shaking, for the water was cold.
He had apparently reached the culmination and termination of his fright.
After his tumble into the water, which had happened because he had been
unable to stop in his mad flight, he had not nerve enough left to do
anything more, no matter what should appear to scare him, and there was
really no reason why he should be afraid of this big white man, who did
not even look at him or give him a thought.

Maka's tale, which he told so rapidly and incoherently that he was
frequently obliged to repeat portions of it, was to the following effect:
He had thought a great deal about the scarcity of water, and it had
troubled him so that he could not sleep. What a dreadful thing it would