CHAPTER III
CHASING A FLYING FIGURE
After what had happened Martin could never visit the waterside andlook at the great birds wading and swimming there without a feelingthat was like a sudden coldness in the blood of his veins. The rosyspoonbill he had killed and cried over and the great bird-cloud thathad frightened him were never forgotten. He grew tired of shoutingto the echoes: he discovered that there were even more wonderfulthings than the marsh echoes in the world, and that the world wasbigger than he had thought it. When spring with its moist verdureand frail, sweet-smelling flowers had gone; when the great plainbegan to turn to a rusty-brown colour, and the dry hard earth wasfull of cracks, and the days grew longer and the heat greater, therecame an appearance of water that quivered and glittered and dancedbefore his wondering sight, and would lead him miles from home everyday in his vain efforts to find out what it was. He could talk ofnothing else, and asked endless questions about it, and they toldhim that this strange thing was nothing but the Mirage, but ofcourse that was not telling him enough, so that he was left topuzzle his little boy-brains over this new mystery, just as they hadpuzzled before over the mystery of the echoes. Now this Mirage was aglittering whiteness that looked just like water, always shining anddancing before him and all round him, on the dry level plain wherethere was no water. It was never quiet, but perpetually quiveringand running into wavelets that threw up crests and jets of sprays asfrom a fountain, and showers of brilliant drops that flashed likemolten silver in the sunlight before they broke and vanished, onlyto be renewed again. It appeared every day when the sun was high andthe air hot, and it was often called _The False Water_. And false itwas, since it always flew before him as he ran, so that although heoften seemed to be getting nearer to it he could never quiteovertake it. But Martin had a very determined spirit for a small boy,and although this appearance of water mocked his efforts a hundredtimes every day with its vanishing brightness and beauty, he wouldnot give up the pursuit.
Now one day when there was not a cloud on the great hot whitey-bluesky, nor a breath of air stirring, when it was all silent, for noteven a grass-hopper creaked in the dead, yellow, motionless grass,the whole level earth began to shine and sparkle like a lake ofsilvery water, as Martin had never seen it shine before. He hadwandered far away from home--never had he been so far--and still heran and ran and ran, and still that whiteness quivered and glitteredand flew on before him; and ever it looked more temptingly near,urging him to fresh exertions. At length, tired out and overcomewith heat, he sat down to rest, and feeling very much hurt at theway he had been deceived and led on, he shed one little tear. Therewas no mistake about that tear; he felt it running like a smallspider down his cheek, and finally he saw it fall. It fell on to ablade of yellow grass and ran down the blade, then stopped so as togather itself into a little round drop before touching the ground.Just then, out of the roots of the grass beneath it, crept a tinydusty black beetle and began drinking the drop, waving its littlehorns up and down like donkey's ears, apparently very much pleasedat its good fortune in finding water and having a good drink in sucha dry, thirsty place. Probably it took the tear for a drop of rainjust fallen out of the sky.
"You _are_ a funny little thing!" exclaimed Martin, feeling now lesslike crying than laughing.
The wee beetle, satisfied and refreshed, climbed up the grass-blade,and when it reached the tip lifted its dusty black wing-cases justenough to throw out a pair of fine gauzy wings that had been neatlyfolded up beneath them, and flew away.
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Martin, following its flight, had his eyes quite dazzled by theintense glitter of the False Water, which now seemed to be only afew yards from him: but the strangest thing was that in it thereappeared a form--a bright beautiful form that vanished when he gazedsteadily at it. Again he got up and began running harder than everafter the flying mocking Mirage, and every time he stopped hefancied that he could see the figure again, sometimes like a paleblue shadow on the brightness; sometimes shining with its ownexcessive light, and sometimes only seen in outline, like a figuregraved on glass, and always vanishing when looked at steadily.Perhaps that white water-like glitter of the Mirage was like alooking-glass, and he was only chasing his own reflection. I cannotsay, but there it was, always before him, a face as of a beautifulboy, with tumbled hair and laughing lips, its figure clothed in afluttering dress of lights and shadows. It also seemed to beckon tohim with its hand, and encourage him to run on after it with itsbright merry glances.
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At length when it was past the hour of noon, Martin sat down under asmall bush that gave just shade enough to cover him and none to spare.It was only a little spot of shade like an island in a sea of heatand brightness. He was too hot and tired to run more, too tired evento keep his eyes open, and so, propping his back against the stem ofthe small bush, he closed his tired hot eyes.