"Three
drops are enough," at last thought he; "I may, at least, cool my lips
with it."
He opened the flask, and was raising it to his lips, when his eye fell
on an object lying on the rock beside him; he thought it moved. It was
a small dog, apparently in the last agony of death from thirst. Its
tongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs extended lifelessly, and a
swarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat. Its eye
moved to the bottle which Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank,
spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on. And he did not know
how it was, but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly come
across the blue sky.
The path became steeper and more rugged every moment; and the high
hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a
fever. The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his
ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every moment.
Another hour passed, and he again looked down to the flask at his
side; it was half empty; but there was much more than three drops in
it. He stopped to open it, and again, as he did so, something moved in
the path above him. It was a fair child, stretched nearly lifeless on
the rock, its breast heaving with thirst, its eyes closed, and its
lips parched and burning. Hans eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed
on. And a dark-gray cloud came over the sun, and long, snake-like
shadows crept up along the mountain sides.
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