"She said it would quench your thirst. Did it?"

"You know, I think it did. I don’t feel thirsty any more. But I suppose that doesn’t help you any. You must still be plenty thirsty."

"I am, but we’ll find some water, don’t worry."

"It’s too bad that well is dry. I sure wish it full of water." Gabrielle said longingly.

"Yeah, me too. But there’s bound to be water somewhere. I guess we should leave, there’s not much else we can do here."

Nodding her head, Gabrielle walked through the front door. As Xena walked out behind her, Gabrielle eyes grew larger and her mouth dropped. "Xena! Look!"

Following Gabrielle’s eyes, Xena saw that the wooden bucket was floating in the well, which was brimming with water.

Running to the well, Gabrielle and Xena scooped up handfuls of water — it was cool and fresh and refreshing. Between gulps, Xena whistled for Argo, who came over and drank her fill as well.

"This must have been the gift the old woman was talking about!" Gabrielle concluded. "She gave us all the water we could ever drink!"

"Yeah, I suppose, as long as we stay right here. No, this can’t be the gift she was talking about. It has to be something else. She said to use your gift wisely. That has to mean something besides not drinking up all the water in one day."

Gabrielle shook her head, "Well, I don’t know. Maybe she was just talking crazy. You know, how some people do just before they die?"

"The water came from somewhere."

"Oh yeah." Gabrielle agreed. "Then I’m at a loss. I have no ideas at all."

"So, do we stay, where we have plenty of water? Or do we fill our skins and hope to find more water before they’re empty again?" Xena asked Gabrielle.

"Well, I don’t think we’d be happy for very long staying here. I mean, this place is really run down. It would take us months to fix everything, even if we had the material we needed. No, I think we should leave. Let’s look around, maybe we can find something else to carry water in besides these water skins. How about over there where all the garbage has been thrown?"