htness and beauty, he would
not give up the pursuit.

Now one day when there was not a cloud on the great hot whitey-blue
sky, nor a breath of air stirring, when it was all silent, for not
even a grass-hopper creaked in the dead, yellow, motionless grass,
the whole level earth began to shine and sparkle like a lake of
silvery water, as Martin had never seen it shine before. He had
wandered far away from home--never had he been so far--and still he
ran and ran and ran, and still that whiteness quivered and glittered
and flew on before him; and ever it looked more temptingly near,
urging him to fresh exertions. At length, tired out and overcome
with heat, he sat down to rest, and feeling very much hurt at the
way he had been deceived and led on, he shed one little tear. There
was no mistake about that tear; he felt it running like a small
spider down his cheek, and finally he saw it fall. It fell on to a
blade of yellow grass and ran down the blade, then stopped so as to
gather itself into a little round drop before touching the ground.
Just then, out of the roots of the grass beneath it, crept a tiny
dusty black beetle and began drinking the drop, waving its little
horns up and down like donkey's ears, apparently very much pleased
at its good fortune in finding water and having a good drink in such
a dry, thirsty place. Probably it took the tear for a drop of rain
just fallen out of the sky.

"You _are_ a funny little thing!" exclaimed Martin, feeling now less
like crying than laughing.

The wee beetle, satisfied and refreshed, climbed up the grass-blade,
and when it reached the tip lifted its dusty black wing-cases just
enough to throw out a pair of fine gauzy wings that had been neatly
folded up beneath them, and flew away.

[Illustration: ]

Martin, following its flight, had his eyes quite dazzled by the
intense glitter of the False Water, which now seemed to be only a
few yards from him: but the strangest thing was that in it there
appeared a form--a bright beautiful form that vanished when he gazed
steadily at it. Again he got up and began running harder than ever
after the flying mocking Mirage, and every time he stopped he
fancied that he could see the figure again, sometimes like a pale
blue shadow on the brightness; sometimes shining with its own
excessive light, and sometimes only seen in outline, like a figure
graved on glass, and always vanishing when looked at steadily.
Perhaps that white water-like