A Little Boy Lost | Page 6

yellow, motionless grass, the whole level earth began to shine and sparkle like a lake of silvery water, as Martin had never seen it shine before. He had wandered far away from home--never had he been so far--and still he ran and ran and ran, and still that whiteness quivered and glittered and flew on before him; and ever it looked more temptingly near, urging him to fresh exertions. At length, tired out and overcome with heat, he sat down to rest, and feeling very much hurt at the way he had been deceived and led on, he shed one little tear. There was no mistake about that tear; he felt it running like a small spider down his cheek, and finally he saw it fall. It fell on to a blade of yellow grass and ran down the blade, then stopped so as to gather itself into a little round drop before touching the ground. Just then, out of the roots of the grass beneath it, crept a tiny dusty black beetle and began drinking the drop, waving its little horns up and down like donkey's ears, apparently very much pleased at its good fortune in finding water and having a good drink in such a dry, thirsty place. Probably it took the tear for a drop of rain just fallen out of the sky.
"You are a funny little thing!" exclaimed Martin, feeling now less like crying than laughing.
The wee beetle, satisfied and refreshed, climbed up the grass-blade, and when it reached the tip lifted its dusty black wing-cases just enough to throw out a pair of fine gauzy wings that had been neatly folded up beneath them, and flew away.
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Martin, following its flight, had his eyes quite dazzled by the intense glitter of the False Water, which now seemed to be only a few yards from him: but the strangest thing was that in it there appeared a form--a bright beautiful form that vanished when he gazed steadily at it. Again he got up and began running harder than ever after the flying mocking Mirage, and every time he stopped he fancied that he could see the figure again, sometimes like a pale blue shadow on the brightness; sometimes shining with its own excessive light, and sometimes only seen in outline, like a figure graved on glass, and always vanishing when looked at steadily. Perhaps that white water-like glitter of the Mirage was like a looking-glass, and he was only chasing his own reflection. I cannot say, but there it was, always before him, a face as of a beautiful boy, with tumbled hair and laughing lips, its figure clothed in a fluttering dress of lights and shadows. It also seemed to beckon to him with its hand, and encourage him to run on after it with its bright merry glances.
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At length when it was past the hour of noon, Martin sat down under a small bush that gave just shade enough to cover him and none to spare. It was only a little spot of shade like an island in a sea of heat and brightness. He was too hot and tired to run more, too tired even to keep his eyes open, and so, propping his back against the stem of the small bush, he closed his tired hot eyes.
CHAPTER IV
MARTIN IS FOUND BY A DEAF OLD MAN
Martin kept his eyes shut for only about a minute, as he thought; but he must have been asleep some time, for when he opened them the False Water had vanished, and the sun, looking very large and crimson, was just about to set. He started up, feeling very thirsty and hungry and bewildered; for he was far, far from home, and lost on the great plain. Presently he spied a man coming towards him on horseback. A very funny-looking old man he proved to be, with a face wrinkled and tanned by sun and wind, until it resembled a piece of ancient shoe-leather left lying for years on some neglected spot of ground. A Brazil nut is not darker nor more wrinkled than was the old man's face. His long matted beard and hair had once been white, but the sun out of doors and the smoke in his smoky hut had given them a yellowish tinge, so that they looked like dry dead grass. He wore big jack-boots, patched all over, and full of cracks and holes; and a great pea-jacket, rusty and ragged, fastened with horn buttons big as saucers. His old brimless hat looked like a dilapidated tea-cosy on his head, and to prevent it from being carried off by the wind it was kept on with an old flannel shirtsleeve tied under his chin. His saddle, too, like his clothes, was old