after what had happened martin could never visit the waterside and look at the great birds wading and swimming there without a feeling that was like a sudden coldness in the blood of his veins. the rosy spoonbill he had killed and cried over and the great bird-cloud that had frightened him were never forgotten. he grew tired of shouting to the echoes: he discovered that there were even more wonderful things than the marsh echoes in the world, and that the world was bigger than he had thought it. when spring with its moist verdure and frail, sweet-smelling flowers had gone; when the great plain began to turn to a rusty-brown colour, and the dry hard earth was full of cracks, and the days grew longer and the heat greater, there came an appearance of water that quivered and glittered and danced before his wondering sight[30], and would lead him miles from home every day in his vain efforts to find out what it was. he could talk of nothing else, and asked endless questions about it, and they told him that this strange thing was nothing but the mirage, but of course that was not telling him enough, so that he was left to puzzle his little boy-brains over this new mystery, just as they had puzzled before over the mystery of the echoes. now this mirage was a glittering whiteness that looked just like water, always shining and dancing before him and all round him, on the dry level plain where there was no water. it was never quiet, but perpetually quivering and running into wavelets that threw up crests and jets of sprays as from a fountain, and showers of brilliant drops that flashed like molten silver in the sunlight before they broke and vanished, only to be renewed again. it appeared every day when the sun was high and the air hot, and it was often called the false water. and false it was, since it always flew before him as he ran, so that although he often seemed to be getting nearer to it he could never quite overtake it. but martin had a very determined spirit for a small boy, and although this appearance of water mocked his efforts a hundred times every day with its vanishing brightness and beauty, he would not give up the pursuit.
now one day when there was not a cloud on the great hot whitey-blue sky, nor a breath of air stirring, when it was all silent, for not even a grass-hopper creaked in the dead, yellow, motionless grass, the whole level earth began to shine and[31] sparkle like a lake of silvery water, as martin had never seen it shine before. he had wandered far away from home—never had he been so far—and still he ran and ran and ran, and still that whiteness quivered and glittered and flew on before him; and ever it looked more temptingly near, urging him to fresh exertions. at length, tired out and overcome with heat, he sat down to rest, and feeling very much hurt at the way he had been deceived and led on, he shed one little tear. there was no mistake about that tear; he felt it running like a small spider down his cheek, and finally he saw it fall. it fell on to a blade of yellow grass and ran down the blade, then stopped so as to gather itself into a little round drop before touching the ground. just then, out of the roots of the grass beneath it, crept a tiny dusty black beetle and began drinking the drop, waving its little horns up and down like donkey's ears, apparently very much pleased at its good fortune in finding water and having a good drink in such a dry, thirsty place. probably it took the tear for a drop of rain just fallen out of the sky.
"you are a funny little thing!" exclaimed martin, feeling now less like 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 just enough to throw out a pair of fine gauzy wings that had been neatly folded up beneath them, and flew away.
martin, following its flight, had his eyes quite dazzled by the intense glitter of the false water, which now seemed to[32] be only a few yards from him: but the strangest thing was that in it there appeared a form—a bright beautiful form that vanished when he gazed steadily at it. again he got up and began running harder than ever after the flying mocking mirage, and every time he stopped he fancied that he could see the figure again, sometimes like a pale blue shadow on the brightness; sometimes shining with its own excessive light, and sometimes only seen in outline, like a figure graved on glass, and always vanishing when looked at steadily. perhaps that white water-like glitter of the mirage was like a looking-glass, and he was only chasing his own reflection. i cannot say, but there it was, always before him, a face as of a beautiful boy, with tumbled hair and laughing lips, its figure clothed in a fluttering dress of lights and shadows. it also seemed to beckon to him with its hand, and encourage him to run on after it with its bright merry glances.
at length when it was past the hour of noon, martin sat down under a small 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 heat and brightness. he was too hot and tired to run more, too tired even to keep his eyes open, and so, propping his back against the stem of the small bush, he closed his tired hot eyes.
