A Little Boy Lost

Chapter 3

CHASING A FLYING FIGURE

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, 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 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 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.