had naomi seen him then she would have found some difficulty in recognizing hermann engelhardt, the little piano-tuner whom already she seemed to have known all her life. yet she had made a singularly shrewd guess at his whereabouts. top scrubby held him fast enough. and when naomi stretched her arms toward the sunset, it is a strange fact that she also stretched them toward the lost young man, who was lying between it and her, not three miles from the spot on which she stood.

within a mile of him ran the horse-paddock fence, which he had crossed by mistake at three o'clock that morning. he had never seen it again. all day he had wandered without striking track, or fence, or water. once indeed his heart had danced at the sudden revelation of footprints under his very nose. they were crisp and clean and obviously recent. all at once they took a fatally familiar appearance. slowly he lifted his right foot and compared the mark of it with the marks he had discovered. they were identical. to put the matter beyond a doubt he got both his feet into a couple of the old footprints. they fitted like pipes in a case. and then he knew that he was walking in circles, after the manner of lost men, and that he stood precisely where he had been three hours before.

that was a bitter moment. there were others and worse before sundown. the worst of all was about the time when naomi flung out her arms and cried aloud in her trouble.

his staggering steps had brought him at last, near sundown, within sight of a ridge of pines which he seemed to know. the nearer he came to them the surer did he become that they were the station pines themselves. footsore and faint and parched as he was, he plucked up all his remaining strength to reach those pines alive. if he were to drop down now it would be shameful, and he deserved to die. so he did not drop until he gained the ridge, and found the pines merely the outer ranks of a regular phalanx of mallee scrub. there was no mallee among the station pines. nor would it have been possible to get so near to the homestead without squeezing through the wires of two fences at least. he had made a hideous and yet a fatuous mistake, and, when he realized it, he flung himself on his face in the shade of a hop-bush and burst into tears. to think that he must perish miserably after all, when, not five minutes since, he had felt the bottle-neck of the water-bag against his teeth—the smell of the wet canvas in his nostrils—the shrinking and lightening of the bag between his palms as the deep draught of cold water brought his dead throat to life.

it was all over now. he turned his face to the sand, and waited sullenly for the end. and presently a crow flew down from a pine, and hopped nearer and nearer to the prostrate body, with many a cautious pause, its wise black head now on one side, now on the other. was it a dead body or a man asleep? there would have been no immediate knowing had not the crow been advancing between the setting sun and the man. its shadow was a yard long when it came between engelhardt's eyes, which were wide open, and the patch of sand that was warm with his breath. an instant later the crow was away with a hoarse scream, and engelhardt was sitting up with a still hoarser oath upon his lips; indeed, he was inarticulate even to his own ears; but he found himself shaking his only fist at the crow, now a mere smut upon the evening sky, and next moment he was tottering to his feet.

he could hardly stand. his eyes were burning, his tongue swollen, his lips cracking like earth in a drought. he was aching, too, from head to foot, but he was not yet food for the crows. he set his teeth, and shook his head once or twice. not yet—not yet.

the setting sun made a lane of light through the pines and mallee. the piano-tuner looked right and left along this lane, wondering which way to turn. he had no prejudice in the matter. all day he had been making calculations, and all day his calculations had been working out wrong. like the struggles of a fly in a spider's web, each new effort left him more hopelessly entangled than the last. so now, without thinking, for thought was of no avail, he[pg 156] turned his face to the sunset, and, after half an hour's painful stumbling, was a mile farther from the station, and a mile deeper in the maze of top scrubby.

night had fallen now, and the air was cool and sweet. this slightly refreshed him, and the continual chewing of leaves also did him some little good, as indeed it had done all day. but he was becoming troubled with a growing giddiness in addition to his other sufferings, and he well knew that the sands of his endurance were almost run. when the stars came out he once more altered his course, taking a new line by the southern cross; but it could not be for long, he was losing strength with every step. about this time it occurred to him to cut a branch for a staff, but when he took out his knife he was too weak to open the blade. a fatal lassitude was creeping over him. he could no longer think or even worry. nothing mattered any more! naomi—his mother—the plans and aspirations of his own life—they were all one to him now, and of little account even in the bulk. it had not been so a few hours earlier, but body and mind were failing together, and with no more hope there was but little more regret. his head and his heart grew light together, and when at last he determined to sit down and be done with it all, his greatest care was the choice of a soft and sandy place. it was as though he had been going to lie down for the night instead of for all time. and yet it was this, the mere fad of a wandering mind, that saved him; for before he had found what he wanted, suddenly—as by a miracle—he saw a light.

in a flash the man was alive and electrified. all the nerves in his body tightened like harp-strings, and the breath of life swept over them, leaving his heart singing of naomi and his mother and the deeds to be done in this world. and the thrill remained; for the light was no phantom of a rocking brain, but a glorious reality that showed brighter and lighter every moment.

yet it was a very long way off. he might never reach it at all. but he rushed on with never a look right or left, or up or down, as if his one chance of life lay in keeping his grip of that light steadfast and unrelaxed. his headlong course brought him twice to his knees with a thud that shook him to the very marrow. once he ran his face into a tangle of small branches, and felt a hot stream flowing over his lips and chin; he sucked at it as it leapt his lips, and reeled on, thanking heaven that he could still see out of his eyes. the light had grown into a camp-fire, and he could hear men's voices around it. their faces he could not see—only the leaping, crackling fire. he tried to coo-ee, but no sound would come. the thought crossed him that even now, within sight and ear-shot of his fellow-men, he might drop for good. his heart kept throbbing against his ribs like an egg boiling in a pan, and his every breath was as a man's last gasp. he passed some horses tethered among the trees. then before the fire there stood a stout figure with shaded eyes and pistols in his belt; another joined him; then a third, with a rifle; and the three loomed larger with every stride, until engelhardt fell sprawling and panting in their midst, his hat gone, his long hair matted upon his forehead, and the white face beneath all streaming with sweat and blood.

"by god, he's dying!" said one of the men, flinging away his fire-arm. "yank us the water-bag, mate, and give the cuss a chance."

engelhardt looked up, and saw one of his two enemies, the swagmen, reaching out his hand for the bag. it was the smaller and quieter of the pair—the man with the weather-beaten face and the twinkling eye—and as engelhardt looked further he saw none other than simons, the discharged shearer, handing the dripping bag across. but a third hand stretched over and snatched it away with a bellowing curse.

"what a blessed soft pair you are! can't you see who 'e is? it's 'is bloomin' little nibs with the broke arm, and not a damned drop does he get from me!"

"come on, bill," said the other tramp. "why not?"

"he knows why not," said bill, who, of course, was the stout scoundrel with the squint. "don't you, sonny?" and he kicked engelhardt in the side with his flat foot.

"easy, mate, easy. the beggar's dying!"

"all the better! if he don't look slippy about it i'll take an' slit his throat for him!"

"well, give him a drop o' water first."

"ay, give 'im a drink, whether or no," put in simons. "no tortures, mate! the plain thing's good enough for me."

"and me, too!"

"why, bo's'n," cried bill, "you've got no more spunk than a blessed old ewe! you sailors and shearers are plucky fine chaps to go mates with in a job like ours! you wouldn't have done for poor old tigerskin!"

"to hell with tigerskin," said simons, savagely. "we've heard more than enough of him. give the beggar a drink, or, by cripes, i'm off it!"

"all right, boys, all right. you needn't get so scotty about it, matey. but he sha'n't drink more than's good for 'im, and he sha'n't drink much at a time, or 'e'll burst 'is skin!"

as he spoke bill uncorked the water-bag, hollowed a filthy palm, flooded it, and held it out to the piano-tuner, who all this time had been sitting still and listening without a word.

"drink out o' my hand," said he, "or not at all."

but engelhardt could only stare at the great hairy paw thrust under his nose. it had no little finger. he was trying to remember what this meant.

"drink out o' that, you swine," thundered bill, "and be damned to you!"

human nature could endure no more. instead of drinking, engelhardt knocked the man's hand up, and made a sudden grab at the water-bag. he got it, too, and had swallowed a mouthful before it was plucked away from him. the oaths came pouring out of bill's mouth like sheep racing through a gate. but the piano-tuner had tasted what was more to him than blood, and he made a second dash at the bag, which resulted in a quantity of water being spilled; so without struggling any more, he fell upon his face with his lips to the wet sand.

"let the joker suck," said bill; "i'll back the sand!"

but engelhardt rolled over on his left side and moved no more.

simons knelt over him.

"he's a stiff 'un, mates. my blessed oath he is! that's number two, an' both on 'em yours, bill."

bill laughed.

"that'll be all right," said he. "where's my pipe got to? i'm weakenin' for a smoke."