"Hadn't we better wake the Dro-mans?"
"I see no necessity for it. When the thing comes—and it was coming, I know—they may be awakened suddenly enough. The men are farther from the passage than we are, the ladies farther still. It must pass us before it can reach them; and we have our revolvers."
"Yes; we have our revolvers. But we don't know what's coming."
"There!" Rhodes exclaimed, his voice a whisper. "We'll soon know. Did you hear that?"
"I heard it. And there it is again!"
"It's coming, Bill!"
It was coming. What were we to see issue from that passage? I gripped my revolver and waited in a suspense that was simply agonizing. The sound ceased—came again. It was a pad-pad, and once or twice another sound was heard—as though produced by something brushing along the wall.
"Look!" I said, crouching forward. "Light!"
The rays grew stronger, casting long shadows—shadows swaying, shaking, crawling. Then of a sudden the light itself appeared and a tall figure came gliding out of the passage.
"Drorathusa!" exclaimed Milton Rhodes.
This sudden lurch from agonized suspense and Gorgonic imagination to glad reality left me for some seconds speechless.
"Well, well," laughed Milton Rhodes, pressing the button and flooding the place with light, "isn't imagination a wonderful thing?"
"But," said I, "what on earth does this mean?"
"Look there, Bill, look!" cried Rhodes. "Look at that!"
Drorathusa was moving straight toward us, a strange smile on that Sibylline face of hers.
"What do you mean?"
"The canteen! Look at her canteen!" Milton cried, pointing excitedly.
Drorathusa stopped and raised the canteen, which was incased in canvas-like stuff. It was wet—yes, wet and dripping.
"Water!" I cried, springing up and rushing toward her.
"Narranawnzee!" said Drorathusa, reaching the canteen toward my clutching fingers.
Great Pluvius, how I did drink! I'd be drinking yet if Rhodes hadn't seized the vessel and wrested it from me.
"You must be careful," said he. "We mustn't drink too much at first."
And he raised the canteen forthwith and proceeded to swallow a couple of quarts.
"For heaven's sake," I told him, "leave some for the others!"
"Yes," said Rhodes, handing the water to Drorathusa. "We have been kind of ungallant, Bill—hoggish. But I was as dry as a burnt cork."
Ere he had ceased speaking, Drorathusa was moving toward her companions. How wonderful was that change, that rush from out the black depths of despair! And yet our situation was still truly a terrible one, for we were lost. But we did not think of that. Water, water! We had water now, and we rejoiced as though we had been caught up and set down in the loveliest of all the lovely glades of Paradise.
A few minutes, and we all (with tent and packs) were following Drorathusa through the passage, were hurrying toward the stream or pool that she had discovered. What whim, what freak of strange chance had led that mysterious woman forth whilst others slept the sleep of despair, forth into that particular passage? Even now I do not know the answer.
