Joshua gazed intently around him.

The sky was still bright, but if the north wind continued to blow, the clouds which seemed to be rising from the sea must soon cover it.
The air had grown sultry, but the guards kept awake and regularly relieved one another.

It was difficult to elude their attention; yet close by Ephraim's couch, which his uncle, for greater comfort, had helped him make on the side of a gently sloping hill, a narrow ravine ran down to the valley.

White veins of gypsum and glittering mica sparkled in the moonlight along its bare edges.

If the agile youth could reach this cleft unseen, and crawl through as far as the pool of saltwater, overgrown with tall grass and tangled desert shrubs, at which it ended, he might, aided by the clouds, succeed.
After arriving at this conviction Joshua considered, as deliberately as if the matter concerned directing one of his soldiers on his way, whether he himself, in case he regained the use of his hands, could succeed in following Ephraim without endangering his project.