"Tell them I must have water or die," muttered Harry to the Krooman in a hoarse whisper. "I am worth money, and if old Golah lets me die for want of a drop of water, he's a fool."
The Krooman refused to make the communication--which he declared would only result in bringing ill treatment upon himself.
Colin appealed to Golah's son, and by signs gave him to understand that they must have water. The young black, in answer, simply condescended to sneer at him. He was not suffering himself, and could have no sympathy for another.
The hides of the blacks, besmeared with oil, seemed to repel the scorching beams of the sun; and years of continual practice had no doubt inured them to the endurance of hunger and thirst to a surprising degree. To their white fellow-captives they appeared more like huge reptiles than human beings.
The sand along the route on this, the second day, was less compact than before, and the task of leg-lifting, produced a weariness such as might have arisen from the hardest work. Added to the agony of their thirst, the white sufferers dwelt frequently on thoughts of death--that great antidote to human miseries; yet so constrained were their actions by force of circumstances, that only by following their leader and owner, Golah, could they hope to find relief.
Had he allowed them to turn back to the coast, whence they had started, or even to repose for a few hours on the way, they could not have done so. They were compelled to move on, by a power that could not be resisted.
That power was Hope,--the hope of obtaining some _sangleh_ and a little dirty water.
To turn back, or to linger behind, would bring them nothing but more suffering,--perhaps death itself.
A man intent on dying may throw himself into the water to get drowned, and then find himself involuntarily struggling to escape from the death he has courted.
The same irresistible antipathy to death compelled his white captives to follow the black sheik.
They were unwilling to die,--not for the sole reason that they had homes and friends they wished to see again,--not solely for that innate love of life, implanted by Nature in the breasts of all; but there was a pleasure which they desired to experience once more,--aye, yearned to indulge in it: the pleasure of quenching their terrible thirst. To gratify this pleasure they must follow Golah.