CHAPTER XLVIII. 
HUMAN BEINGS AT LAST 
I T would be vain for me to try to describe the feelings 
which now overpowered me. They may be imagined ; 
they cannot be described. Before drinking I counted 
my pulse : it was forty-nine. Then I took the tin box 
out of my pocket, filled it, and drank. How sweet that 
water tasted! Nobody can conceive it who has not been 
within an ace of dying of thirst. 1 lifted the tin to my 
lips, calmly, slowly, deliberately, and drank, drank, drank, 
time after time. How' delicious! what exquisite pleasure! 
The noblest wine pressed out of the grape, the divinest 
nectar ever made, was never half so sweet. My hopes 
had not deceived me. The star of my fortunes shone 
as brightly as ever it did. 
I do not think I at all exaggerate, if I say that during 
the first ten minutes I drank betw’een five and six pints. 
The tin box held not quite an ordinary tumblerful, and 
I emptied it quite a score of times. At that moment it 
never entered my head that, after such a long fast, it 
might be dangerous to drink in such quantity. But I 
experienced not the slightest ill effects from it. On the 
contrary I felt how that cold, clear, delicious water infused 
new energy into me. Every blood-vessel and tissue of 
my body sucked up the life-giving liquid like a sponge. 
My pulse, which had been so feeble, now beat strong 
again. At the end of a few minutes it was already fifty- 
six. My blood, which had lately been so sluggish and 
so slow, that it was scarce able to creep through the 
capillaries, now coursed easily through every blood-vessel. 
My hands, which had been dry, parched, and as hard 
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