He opened the flask, and was raising it to his lips, when his eye fell on an object lying on the rock beside him; he thought it moved.  It was a small dog, apparently in the last agony of death from thirst.  Its tongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs extended lifelessly, and a swarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat.  Its eye moved to the bottle which Hans held in his hand.  He raised it, drank, spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on.  And he did not know how it was, but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly come across the blue sky.

The path became steeper and more rugged every moment; and the high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a fever.  The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every moment.  Another hour passed, and he again looked down to the flask at his side; it was half empty, but there was much more than three drops in it.  He stopped to open it, and again, as he did so, something moved in the path above him.  It was a fair child, stretched nearly lifeless on the rock, its breast heaving with thirst, its eyes closed, and its lips parched and burning.  Hans eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed on.  And a dark gray cloud came over the sun, and long snake-like shadows crept up along the mountain sides.  Hans struggled on.  The sun was sinking, but its descent seemed to bring no coolness; the leaden weight of the dead air pressed upon his brow and heart, but the goal was near.  He saw the cataract of the Golden River springing from the hillside, scarcely five hundred feet above him.  He paused for a moment to breathe, and sprang on to complete his task.

At this instant a faint cry fell on his ear.  He turned, and saw a gray-haired old man extended on the rocks.  His eyes were sunk, his features deadly pale, and gathered into an expression of despair.  “Water!”—­he stretched his arms to Hans, and cried feebly—­“Water!  I am dying.”

[Illustration:  Thou hast had thy share of life]

“I have none,” replied Hans; “thou hast had thy share of life.”  He strode over the prostrate body, and darted on.  And a flash of blue lightning rose out of the east, shaped like a sword; it shook thrice over the whole heaven, and left it dark with one heavy, impenetrable shade.  The sun was setting; it plunged toward the horizon like a red-hot ball.

The roar of the Golden River rose on Hans’s ear.  He stood at the brink of the chasm through which it ran.  Its waves were filled with the red glory of the sunset; they shook their crests like tongues of fire, and flashes of bloody light gleamed along their foam.  Their sound came mightier and mightier on his senses; his brain grew giddy with the prolonged thunder.  Shuddering, he drew the flask from his girdle, and hurled it into the centre of the torrent.  As he did so, an icy chill shot through his limbs; he staggered, shrieked, and fell.  The water closed over his cry.  And the moaning of the river rose wildly into the night, as it gushed over