TIME'S FINGER 301 



had reconciled me in a few suffering hours to this con- 

 fined space. Verily do I beheve that the overcoming 

 of this subtle anodyne demanded the expenditure of 

 more vital force than the sum of all the long-sustained 

 automatic exertion by which I had won physical release. 

 One supreme mental tug and the baneful torpor was 

 dispelled, and with stiffened legs and bruised hands I 

 began to screw myself up to the free air cautiously and 

 painfully; and there, in a beam of light from the crystal, 

 was the slow-dripping flower-bedizened water — celestial 

 nectar to parched lips. 



Hours after I awoke as from a dream. Far below a 

 column of smoke showed that Wylo still watched. My 

 first act was to send up a responsive signal. In a fit 

 of petty passion I flung the toil-worn boot into the ravine, 

 and began the descent by way of the spur to the west. 



Wylo seemed scared by the sight of the staggering 

 and tattered scarecrow, barefooted, and stained with 

 blood and dirt, who stumbled into the camp at dusk, 

 too weary to talk, almost too spent to eat; and to this 

 day he is convinced that I was actually detained by the 

 "debil-debil," whom I had overcome by some means of 

 which wonder-working white men alone have the secret. 

 After two days' rest I cHmbed the mountain again, 

 blocked the fissure with loose stones, and built a buttress, 

 standing upon which I tapped the crystal gently with 

 the tomahawk. It quivered. A shaft of rainbow tints 

 dazzled my sight. I tapped again. As I touched it a 

 third time, the fragile finger with which the gaunt old 

 rock had scorned the plodding centuries vanished in a 

 splutter of spangles ! 



