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.