Their ration of water was now
reduced to one small liqueur glass. One drop only, just to moisten
his lips, and Desclieux poured the rest on the plant, now apparently
dying.
'Alas! how you are changed!' said Louisa to him one day: 'how pale
you have become. You are suffering: this heat is killing you.'
He knew it; but he had promised to water the plant, even though he
himself was to die of thirst; and he was faithful to his word. One
evening, when Louisa and her parents were questioning him, he thus
answered in a feeble voice, 'You are right; I die of thirst, that my
charge may live--it is my duty.' And saying these words, he laid his
parched lips upon its withered leaves, as one would kiss the hand of
an expiring friend, and continued: 'You have all promised to love me:
if I do not live, be careful of this coffee-plant, which held out to
us such brilliant prospects. I ask it of you as a favour, and
bequeath to you the distinction I hoped to have gained by it.' At the
moment they were distributing the scanty portion of water, and though
he was perishing, he threw the whole of it upon the shrub--Louisa did
the same.
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