CHAPTER IV


MARTIN IS FOUND BY A DEAF OLD MAN

Martin kept his eyes shut for only about a minute, as he thought;
but he must have been asleep some time, for when he opened them the
False Water had vanished, and the sun, looking very large and crimson,
was just about to set. He started up, feeling very thirsty and
hungry and bewildered; for he was far, far from home, and lost on
the great plain. Presently he spied a man coming towards him on
horseback. A very funny-looking old man he proved to be, with a face
wrinkled and tanned by sun and wind, until it resembled a piece of
ancient shoe-leather left lying for years on some neglected spot of
ground. A Brazil nut is not darker nor more wrinkled than was the
old man's face. His long matted beard and hair had once been white,
but the sun out of doors and the smoke in his smoky hut had given
them a yellowish tinge, so that they looked like dry dead grass. He
wore big jack-boots, patched all over, and full of cracks and holes;
and a great pea-jacket, rusty and ragged, fastened with horn buttons
big as saucers. His old brimless hat looked like a dilapidated
tea-cosy on his head, and to prevent it from being carried off by
the wind it was kept on with an old flannel shirtsleeve tied under
his chin. His saddle, too, like his clothes, was old and full of
rents, with wisps of hair and straw-stuffing sticking out in various
places, and his feet were thrust into a pair of big stirrups made of
pieces of wood and rusty iron tied together with string and wire.