They conversed awhile till Denis returned, bearing sundry bottles and glasses on a tray.  The priest smiled at the sight.  Light-hearted allusions to Ganymede rose to his lips, but were suppressed.  He swallowed down the rising inclination to be classical at the expense of good taste, and engulfed, on the top of it, as a kind of paperweight, a vast tumblerful of red Nepenthe wine.  The draught instead of cheering seemed to make him suddenly despondent.  He wiped his lips and remarked, in a grave and almost conscience-stricken manner: 

“I have some unpleasant news for you, gentlemen.  The fountain of Saint Elias has ceased to flow.  We heard it this morning from a sailor, an unusually trustworthy person—­a man, I mean, who can be relied upon to tell the truth when there is nothing to be gained by concealing or distorting it.  The thing must have happened last night.  Yes, it has dried up altogether.  What is to be done?”

“You don’t say so,” remarked Keith.  “This is really interesting!  I thought something was going to happen.  I suppose your people are rather alarmed?”

Denis interrupted: 

“I don’t understand what you are talking about.  Why should not a fountain dry up if it wants to?  And what does it matter to anybody?”

“What does it matter?” echoed the priest.  “This is no ordinary fountain, I am sorry to say.  Have you never heard of Beelzebub?”

CHAPTER XVI

Now, with regard to fountains, it is to be noted that Nepenthe, an islet of volcanic stone rising out of the blue Mediterranean, has never—­for all its natural attractions—­been renowned for cool springs and bubbling streamlets.  There is, to be sure, a charming couplet in some old humanist about LYMPHA NEPENTHI; but modern scholars are disposed to think either that the text is corrupt and that the writer was picturing an imaginary nympha—­some laughing sea-lady—­or else that he merely indulged in one of those poetic flights which are a feature of the literature of his period.  For whatever the cause may be—­whether internal fires have scorched up the natural humours of the soil, or whether the waters of Nepenthe are of such peculiar heaviness that, instead of flowing upwards in the shape of fountains, they tumble downwards into caverns below the sea—­the fact remains:  Nepenthe is a waterless land.  And this may well be the reason, as several thoughtful observers have already pointed out, why its wines are so abundant in quantity, so cheap in price, and of such super-excellent flavour.  For it is a fact conformable to that law of compensation which regulates all earthly affairs, a fact borne out by the universal experience of mankind, that God, when He takes away with one hand, gives with the other.  Lack of water, on the face of things, might be deemed a considerable hardship.  There are tracts in Africa where people have been known to barter wives and children for a cupful of the liquid element.  Of the inhabitants of Nepenthe it must be said to their credit that they endure their lot with equanimity, and even cheerfulness.  Their wine costs nothing.  Why grumble at the inscrutable ways of Providence?  Why be thirsty, why be sober, when you can get as drunk as a lord for the asking?