Marianne rested breathlessly on her oars. The sun was up now and beat down on the sea with a glare that hurt her eyes. It was going to be a hot day, and she had nothing to protect her from the burning rays.
To guard against sunstroke, she tore off a strip from her wrapper and wound it round her head like a turban, but this did nothing to shade her face which was already starting to burn. In spite of it, she rowed on doggedly, eastwards.
There was worse to come. By midday, thirst was beginning, slowly and inexorably, to make itself felt. At first it was no more than a dryness of the lips and mouth. Then, little by little, the dryness spread to her whole body. Her skin grew hot and parched. She made a feverish search of every corner of the boat in the hope that food and water might have been stowed aboard in case of shipwreck, but there was nothing, only the oars: nothing to quench the thirst which was becoming a torment, nothing… only the blue immensity of water which mocked her.
She sought some relief by taking off her scanty clothing and hanging over the side to scoop sea-water over her body. It revived her a little and she moistened her lips and even tried to drink a few drops of cool water, but this only made things worse. The salt smarted on her lips and merely accentuated her thirst.
Hunger came later, and was not so bad. Marianne would gladly have gone without food for two days for the sake of one glass of fresh water, yet a time came when she could no longer ignore the gnawing in her stomach. Her condition, the fact that there was a new life dependent on her own, only made her body more demanding. It was not long before she was suffering badly from fatigue. The sun was merciless. With a last effort she managed to ship the oars and lay them in the bottom of the boat, then she lay down, shielding herself from the killing rays as best she could. Still there was no land in sight, not even another boat, and if help were not forthcoming soon, she knew that she would face death – the slow, appalling death that she no longer doubted had been meant for her by Leighton. Yet, the man was a doctor and must, at some stage in his life, have sworn a solemn oath to succour anyone threatened by sickness and death.
The fact that she had not so far encountered any other human being, nor even caught a glimpse of a sail, suggested that the Sea Witch had already deviated from her course before setting her adrift. They must have put her overboard somewhere in the midst of the broad stretch of open water that lay between the Cyclades and the island of Crete. Leighton's purpose had not simply been to get her off the ship: he had condemned her, quite coldbloodedly, to death.
She very nearly cried as the cruel reality of her situation came home to her, but she forced back the tears with all the feeble strength left to her, knowing that she could not afford to waste a drop of the precious water that remained in her exhausted body.
Evening brought some relief from the heat but the dehydration that seemed to be draining her body, like a vampire, only grew worse. Soon even her bones seemed to be crying out their torturing need for water.
As she had done earlier, she scooped sea water over herself and knew a momentary relief. With it came the temptation to let herself slide into the blue water and seek a final end to all her sufferings. But the instinct of self-preservation was stronger, that and the odd little flicker, like the night-light burning in a sick-room which keeps the shadow of death at bay, which still flared up in her and bade her live, if only for the sake of revenge.
The temperature dropped unexpectedly after dark and, after suffering from the heat all day, Marianne shivered all night long in her thin lawn, without a wink of sleep. Not until the sun had risen once more over the empty sea, did she manage to drop off and forget her parched and aching body. But the awakening was all the more painful. She was stiff and sore and desperately weak.
Even so, at the cost of an almost superhuman effort, she succeeded in sitting up, only to fall back motionless into the bottom of the boat, at the mercy of the sun which now increased her torment.
After that, the mirages began to occur. She seemed to see land on the burning horizon, and fantastic shapes of ships, and great sails racing towards her, bending over her, but when she stretched out her arms to seize them in her delirium, she touched only the empty air and the wooden sides of the boat, and was left weaker than before. The day passed with infinite slowness. In spite of the little she had managed to contrive in the way of shelter, the sun beat down on her with hammer strokes, and her tongue, which seemed to have swollen to three times its normal size, had grown too big for her mouth and was threatening to choke her.
The boat drifted gently: in what direction Marianne had no means of telling. For all she knew, or cared, it might have been moving in circles. She was lost, and she knew it. She could hope for no help, now, but death. Opening her burned eyes painfully, she dragged herself to the side, determined now to drop into the water, if she could find the strength, and make an end of this inhuman torture. But her body had become like a baulk of dead wood and she could not raise it.
Something red passed through her misted field of vision. Her hands touched water. She thrust harder. The rough wood scraped her chest but she did not feel it, insensible now to any pain but the vast fire that was consuming her whole being. Another little effort and her hair was trailing in the sea. The boat tipped gently and Marianne slipped over into the blue water which closed, mercifully cool, over her head.
Too weak and too indifferent to swim, asking nothing but to get it over as quickly as possible, she let herself sink. Her mind shook free of the real world and consciousness receded.
Yet the terrible need for water which had tormented her seemed to pursue her into death. She was haunted by water, it invaded her, she was dissolving in it. Sweet, life-giving water was flowing over her, as spring water wells up and covers dry stones. It was no longer the bitter, salt sea-water but a fresh draught, light as rainfall on the grass in a parched garden. Solaced, Marianne began to dream that the Almighty, in His mercy, had decreed that she should spend eternity drinking sweet water, and that she had gone to the paradise of those who have died of thirst.
If so, it was a singularly hard and uncomfortable paradise. Her disembodied spirit was actually hurting quite savagely. Her swollen eyelids parted painfully and she saw a heavily bearded face bending over her, out of which looked a pair of questioning black eyes. Something red flapped in the background which she was soon able to identify as a sail rippling in the wind.
Seeing that she had regained consciousness, the man slipped an arm beneath her head and supported her while he held something rough and cool to her cracked lips. It was the rim of an earthen jar. He let a little more of the blessed water trickle down her throat. As he did so, he said something incomprehensible, evidently speaking to someone Marianne could not see. Weak as she was, she struggled round and saw a black figure standing outlined against the red sail. He made a sinister impression standing there in the fiery glow of the setting sun: there was a Greek priest on board. Although himself heavily bearded and by no means clean, he was looking at her with evident disapproval. He said something clearly unflattering in reply and pointed an accusing finger. Instantly the man holding Marianne drew a piece of sailcloth over her, while the priest tucked his hands in his sleeves and turned away to stare at the horizon. Marianne remembered suddenly that her flimsy nightclothes must be in ribbons.
She tried to smile her thanks to her rescuer but her parched lips would only form an agonized grimace and she winced at the pain of it.
The man, apparently a fisherman, then reached behind him and produced a small phial of olive oil, which he smeared generously over her face. After this, he drew a basket towards him and took out a bunch of grapes, some of which he fed cautiously to his patient. Marianne took them eagerly: they were white and sweet and it seemed to her that she had never tasted anything so delicious.