The assault of time is the one that unnerves a man,
especially when it is aided by gnawing pain and weariness and
hunger; it saps the courage and destroys the heart and fires the
brain.
We dragged ourselves somehow ever onward. We found water; the
mountain was honeycombed with underground streams; but no food.
More than once we were tempted to trust ourselves to one of those
rushing torrents, but what reason we had left told us that our
little remaining strength was unequal to the task of keeping our
heads above the surface. And yet the thought was sweet--to allow
ourselves to be peacefully swept into oblivion.
We lost all idea of time and direction, and finally hope itself
deserted us. What force it was that propelled us forward must
have been buried deep within the seat of animal instinct, for we
lost all rational power. The thing became a nightmare, like the
crazy wanderings of a lost soul.
Forward--forward--forward! It was a mania.
Then Harry was stricken with fever and became delirious. And I
think it was that seeming misfortune that saved us, for it gave
me a spring for action and endowed me with new life. As luck
would have it, a stream of water was near, and I half carried and
half dragged him to its edge.
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