Identifier: boytarorvoyagein00reid (find matches)
Title: The boy tar; or, A voyage in the dark
Year: 1860 (1860s)
Authors: Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883 Keene, Charles, 1823-1891
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, Ticknor and Fields
Contributing Library: Information and Library Science Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Digitizing Sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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return fiercer and morecraving than ever. Oh! if it should be one or any ofthem, then indeed was I lost, — then indeed might Iyield up my last hope, and die as men have often died,under the madness of intoxication ! I was close to the inner surface of the stave ■— mois-ture was already oozing through the wood, where it hadbeen penetrated by the point of the blade. I hesitatedto make the last cut — I dreaded the result. I hesitatedbut a short while. The torture of my thirst impelledtne on; and plunging the blade deeply, I felt the lastfibres yielding to its point. Almost at the same instanta cold spray rushed out, sprinkling my hand upon thehaft, and rushing far up my sleeve. After giving the blade a twist, I drew it out, and then 144 THE BOY TAR. a jet shot forth, as if forced from a syringe. In anotherinstant my lips covered the vent, and I drank deliciousdraughts, — not of spirits, not of wine, — but of water,cold and sweet as though it issued from a rock of lime-stone !
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CHAPTER XXV. THE VENT-PEG. Oh ! how I drank of that deUcious water ! I thoughtI should never be satisfied; but at length satiety wasproduced, and I thirsted no more. The effect was not immediate,— the first long draughtdid not relieve me, or only for a time. I longed again,and again placed my lips to the spouting stream ; andthis I did repeatedly, until the longing returned not, andthe pangs of thirst were forgotten as if I had never feltthem ! It is beyond the power of the imagination to form anyidea of the agony of thirst, — mere fancy cannot realizeit. It must be experienced to be known, but a proofof its intensity might be given by adducing the horri-ble alternatives to which men have resorted when re-duced to the extremity of this torturing pain. And yet,withal, as eoon as the craving is appeased — so soon asa sufficient quantity of water has passed the lips, thepain exists no more, but ends with the suddenness of adream ! No other bodily ill can be so quickly healed. My th

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