And then,
at last:
"Oh, how thirsty I am!" he cried, in delirious accents.
I too was thirsty. My throat was on fire. And, yet, squatting on
the floor, I went on hunting, hunting, hunting for the spring of
the invisible door...especially as it was dangerous to remain
in the forest as evening drew nigh. Already the shades of night
were beginning to surround us. It had happened very quickly:
night falls quickly in tropical countries...suddenly, with hardly
any twilight.
Now night, in the forests of the equator, is always dangerous,
particularly when, like ourselves, one has not the materials for a
fire to keep off the beasts of prey. I did indeed try for a moment
to break off the branches, which I would have lit with my dark lantern,
but I knocked myself also against the mirrors and remembered,
in time, that we had only images of branches to do with.
The heat did not go with the daylight; on the contrary, it was now
still hotter under the blue rays of the moon. I urged the viscount
to hold our weapons ready to fire and not to stray from camp,
while I went on looking for my spring.
Suddenly, we heard a lion roaring a few yards away.
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