Extraterrestrial beings -- Fiction; Science fiction, English; Space flight to Mars -- Fiction
The water revived Temple like doses of some magic elixir, and he
crawled to the nearest pool and drank his fill of this sweet,
refreshing nectar from the sky! Then amidst the tempest strife, and
by the lightning's light, he dragged his cold and aching body towards
his fallen comrades, his cap full of water, and beginning with Graham,
who was lying face downwards, he gently parted his dry cracked lips
asunder, and poured a few drops between his teeth. The effect was
instantaneous, and he showed signs of returning consciousness; by
bathing his forehead, he was soon able to speak.
"Thank you, Mr. Temple," he faintly murmured, "I shall be better now.
Whoever expected rain in such a region! But leave me, and lend the poor
Doctor some assistance. I am afraid he is in a bad way."
The rain had served Sandy, too, in a remarkable way, and we heard
him groping in the darkness, and drinking from his hands, which he
filled from one of the numerous pools around us. In half an hour all
of us could stand except the Doctor; he was alive, but unable to move
or speak. Then the storm ceased, the sky cleared, and a yellow light
over the east heralded the sun. Daylight revealed the heaviness of the
storm. We were surrounded by pools of sparkling rain-water, resting in
the crevices of the rocks, and the mountain sides were furrowed with
crystal streams, whose volume was fast becoming less as the sands
absorbed them. Sandy, by Graham's direction, crawled off to search
for the water-cask and the packs we had thrown away the previous
evening. The cask we broke up, and with the wood we made a small fire.
By careful management we contrived to heat sufficient water to make
half-a-gallon of the meat essence, and a cup of this soon put new life
into the Doctor. Poor Rover was almost dead, and lay helpless where he
had crouched down by Sandy's side, hours before, and it took all his
master's care to bring him round.
By the time we had drunk our soup the sun had risen, and his generous
rays--the rays we were but so ready to curse yesterday--soon dried our
dripping garments, and warmed our bodies back to more vigorous life. We
also dried and oiled our firearms, and packed our knapsacks afresh. But
we were all too weak and exhausted to march, and we decided to stay and
rest ourselves for a few hours. We had food and water in abundance, and
if we could only find some fuel we should want little more. We left the
side of the lake, and took up our quarters under the lee of a huge mass
of rock, and here we stayed until noon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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