h as best he could. All his life, at times of illness or stress,
he had been subject to fainting fits; miraculously, in these dreadful
days, he had not fainted once, but now waves were rising about him,
almost submerging him. If the Indian came soon with the water ... if he
could once drink his fill ... if he could drink even a few drops ... he
could hold out. But the Indian had been gone for more than an hour, and
there was grave doubt of his ever coming back.

His eyes, skimming the ceiling, dropped to the shelves of books which
ran about the room and rose almost to meet it. They came to a startled
halt on a vase of ferns on a high shelf. A vase of ferns. There must
have been water in it. _Perhaps there was water in it now!_ He was so
weak that it was a tremendous effort for him to drag himself out of his
chair and across the room, to climb up on the book ladder and reach for
it. He grew so dizzy that it seemed as if he must drop it. He shook it.
_Water!_ He lifted out the ferns and looked. It was almost full. He
stood there with it in his hand, his eyes on the doors. He wanted with
all his heart to call Honor, to share it. His heart and his mind wanted
to call her, but his hands lifted the vase to his dry lips and he drank
in great gulps. He stopped himself before he was half satisfied. He was
equal to that. Then he put the ferns back in the vase and the vase back
on the shelf and went into the hall and called upstairs to her.

Honor came at once. "Oh, Carter, has Juan come?"

"No, not yet! But I think--I hope--I've made a discovery! Look!" He
pointed to the vase.

She caught her breath. "There might be water in it?"

"Yes, I'm sure there is." Again, more steadily this time, he mounted the
little sliding book ladder and reached for the vase, and Honor stood
watching him with wide eyes, her cracked lips parted.

"_Water?_" she whispered.

He nodded solemnly, shaking the tall vase for her to hear the heartening
sound of it. When he stood on the floor he held it toward her. "You
first, Honor."

"No." She was trembling. "We'll pour it out into a pitcher. If there's
enough to divide, we'll all have some. If there's just a little, we'll
give it to Mr. King." She went away, walking a little unsteadily,
putting out a hand here and there against the wall or the back of a
chair, and in a moment she came back with a tall glass pitcher.
"Careful, Cartie ... mustn't spill a drop...."

There was less than a cupful of dar