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.
Now one day when there was not a cloud on the great hot whitey-blue sky, nor a breath of air stirring, when it was all silent, for not even a grass-hopper creaked in the dead, yellow, motionless grass, the whole level earth began to shine and sparkle like a lake of silvery water, as Martin had never seen it shine before.