And through a gap in the brown coast range, at twenty leagues of distance, a light (so faint as to seem a shadow) hovered above the Pacific.
But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water gleam.
Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to urge him on toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water.

But, to my surprise, he staggered back, and his face grew as white as the distant snow.

I managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with the help of his own endeavors, and there let him rest and try to speak, while my frightened heart throbbed over his.
"My little child," he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten years, "put your hand where I can feel it." My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it was, it moved.

But cold fear stopped my talking.
"My child, I have not been kind to you," my father slowly spoke again, "but it has not been from want of love.

Some day you will see all this, and some day you will pardon me." He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain, with the last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing.