The splendor of the purple sky with its myriads of lustrous stars was in striking contrast with the sameness of the white and deathlike desert.

A profound melancholy took hold of me.

I had ceased to fear, almost to think, my perceptions were blinded by excitement and fatigue, my spirits oppressed by an unspeakable sense of loneliness and helplessness, and the awful silence, intensified rather than relieved by the long drawn moaning of the unseen ocean, which, however far I might be from it, was ever in my ears.
I looked up at the stars, and when the cross began to bend I knew that midnight was past, and that in a few hours would dawn another day.

What would it bring me--life or death?
I hardly cared which; relief from the torture and suspense I was enduring would be welcome, come how it might.
For I suffered cruelly; I had a terrible thirst.

The cords chafed my limbs and cut into my flesh.