It looked like the moon when it rises from behind clouds, and glows red and lurid from the horizon; and so this glowed, but not with the steady light of the moon, for the light was fitful, and sometimes flashed into a baleful brightness, which soon subsided into a dimmer lustre.

New alarm arose within me, for this new sight suggested something more terrible than anything that I had thus far thought of.

This, then, I thought, was to be the end of my voyage; this was my goal--a pit of fire, into which I should be hurled! Would it be well, I thought, to wait for such a fate, and experience such a death-agony?
Would it not be better for me to take my own life before I should know the worst?
I took my pistol and loaded it, so as to be prepared, but hesitated to use it until my fate should be more apparent.

So I sat, holding my pistol, prepared to use it, watching the light, and awaiting the time when the glowing fires should make all further hope impossible.

But time passed, and the light grew no brighter; on the contrary, it seemed to grow fainter.