Part 14

“I tell you I shall go mad,” moaned Helm. “I didn’t think I was a coward, but I can’t stand this. Old chap, don’t let me go mad; shoot me if you see I ‘m going mad.”

“Mad,” said the other bravely, “nonsense, man, you’re all right. You’ll feel better presently when you’ve had a spell.”

The lines of trees resolved itself on closer inspection into close-growing gidya scrub, and long before they reached it the crows had again made their appearance. A little flock kept them company, waiting on in front, rushing up behind as if perchance they might be late, wheeling round on either side.

“There must be water there,” said Helm eagerly, “look at the crows again.”

“Don’t build on it, old chap,” said the other. “The scrub is too thick for us to find it.”

But Helm was not to be dissuaded, and he wasted his energies in a frantic search for water. His mate looked more soberly, because more hopelessly, but the result was the same, and finally they lay down in the shade and slept again, slept soundly too, in spite of the crows, which were more confident, more impudent, than ever. Night fell, and with the darkness grew in Helm an intense desire to be on the way again.

“We ‘re wasting time,” he kept saying hoarsely, for his tongue was so swollen he could hardly speak at all, “wasting time. Don’t you see they ‘ll be expecting us in to supper at Gerring Gerring, and I shouldn’t like the crows to get there first. They might frighten her, you know, she’s only a girl and she hasn’t seen so much of them as you and me. Those knowing old crows! they ‘re not here now. Don’t you see that’s why they want to get there first?”

“Be quiet, man. You ‘re dreaming.”

“Dreaming, was I? Anderson, Anderson, mate, I ‘m not going mad. For God’s sake, don’t let me go mad.”

“No, no, old man, it’s all right. We ‘re on the right track now. Here, I ‘ll take the horse and you give me your arm. There, now then, if we ‘ve luck we may hit Gerring Gerring before morning.”

They walked on in silence, but Helm kept stumbling, and but for his companion’s supporting arm would have fallen more than once. The moon rose up, and as it grew light as day again he stopped short and looked solemnly in his companion’s face. It was worn and haggard and weary, but not so wild, he felt instinctively, as his own.

“Anderson,” he said, “I know I ‘m done for. My head’s all wrong. It ‘s cooler now, but what’ll it be to-morrow? If--if--if I do anything mad before I die, don’t tell her, I ‘d like her to think well of me. Just say I died, don’t say how it hurt.”

“All right, mate,” said the other, for he had no comfort to give.

And then they walked on again in silence till the moon declined before the coming day, the cruel day, which brought the heat and the following crows again. Dawn brought them to a patch of “dead finish,” as the settlers call a dense and thorny scrub with pretty green leaves, through which it is well nigh impossible to force a way even under the most favourable circumstances; and which presented an utterly impassable barrier to men in their condition. They turned aside once more, and Anderson thought to himself that they must indeed have given up hope, to be stopped by an impassable barrier and yet to make no moan. It was surely the very depths of hopelessness when all ways were alike to them. He looked back on their tracks and dismay filled his heart; they were not firm and straight, but wavering and wandering like those of men in the last extremity. He had followed tracks like these before now, and they always led to the same thing. He wondered dully would any one ever follow those tracks. A little further on Helm let go his arm and ran on ahead.

“We’ll never do any good at this rate,” he gasped, “never--never;” and he pulled at the collar of his shirt till he tore it away. “We must have something to drink. We ‘ll die else, and I mean to have a fight for life. There’s the old horse, he can’t stagger a step further; what’s the good of keeping him? Let’s shoot him--and--and--There’s enough blood in him to--to--”

“No, no, man, no. I tell you that’s the beginning of the end--more than the beginning--the end in fact.”

“I don’t care. I can’t stand this;” and before Anderson could stop him, Helm had drawn his pistol and shot the horse in the head.

The poor beast was at his last gasp, and for the last hour Anderson had been meditating the advisibility of leaving him behind, so it was no material loss; his only care now was to prevent his mate from drinking the blood, which, according to the faith of the bushmen, is worse than drinking salt water.

“Poor old beggar,” he said, taking his pistols and cartridges from the saddle, where they had been wrapped among the blankets, “I suppose it was about the kindest thing we could do for him. Come on, mate, we must leave him to the crows now,” and he caught Helm’s arm and would have led him on.

But the other resisted and breaking free ran back, and before he could stop him, had drawn his knife across the horse’s throat and taken a long draught of blood.

Does it sound ghastly? But such things are, and his lips were dry and parched, and his throat so swollen that he could only speak in hoarse whispers, and so great was the temptation that Anderson, looking away at the bare pitiless plain, with the mocking mirage in the distance, felt that he too might as well drink and die; only the thought of the cripple boy who would be alone in the world but for him, made him make one more desperate effort for self-control.

He took the younger man’s arm and dragged him on, skirting slowly round the “dead finish” till at length, late in the afternoon, it gave place to boree. His own senses were clear enough, but Helm was muttering wildly, and he listened with unheeding ears to his babble of home and mother and sweetheart. They could not go far, and soon they forced their way in among the scrub, and though the burning thirst was worse than ever, the shade was grateful. The crows stopped too, and settled on the low trees, turning their evil blue-black heads on one side to get a better view of their prey.

“I can’t keep my head,” moaned Helm, “I can’t. I have been mad all day. I know I have. It has stretched out into ages this long day and it’s not over yet. When were we lost? Yesterday? The day before? It feels like years.”

“Never mind,” said Anderson, not unkindly, “it can’t be much longer now. Try to sleep, old man.”

“Sleep! with a thousand devils tearing at me!”

But they did sleep after all, a wearied, troubled sleep, a broken sleep full of frightful dreams, or still more cruel ones of cooling streams and rippling waters. Night came, and Anderson awoke from what seemed to him a doze of a moment to find his companion gone from his side. For a second the thought came to him that it was not worth while to look for him. He was mad--mad, and where was the use of troubling about him any further; and then his better feelings, and perhaps that longing for human companionship which we all must feel, made him rise up and look for him. Up and down, he was staggering up and down, a hundred feet one way and then back again on his own tracks.

“We must get on, old chap,” he muttered when he saw Anderson, “we must get on. You rest if you like though; there isn’t anybody waiting for you; but Mabel, she ‘s waiting for me and I must try and get back. She would be disappointed else. Grieve! of course she’ll grieve if I’m lost. All the world isn’t a cynic like you.”

Anderson took his arm again.