Neither realized until then how thoroughly that hard climb up the rocks, the strain of continued peril, and the long abstinence from food had sapped their strength, yet to remain where they were meant certain death; all hope found its centre amid those distant beckoning trees.

Mechanically the girl gathered back her straying tresses, and tied them with a rag torn from her frayed skirt.
Hampton noted silently how heavy and sunken her eyes were; he felt a dull pity, yet could not sufficiently arouse himself from the lethargy of exhaustion to speak.

His body seemed a leaden weight, his brain a dull, inert mass; nothing was left him but an unreasoning purpose, the iron will to press on across that desolate plain, which already reeled and writhed before his aching eyes.
No one can explain later how such deeds are ever accomplished; how the tortured soul controls physical weakness, and compels strained sinews to perform the miracle of action when all ambition has died.

Hampton surely must have both seen and known, for he kept his direction, yet never afterwards did he regain any clear memory of it.

Twice she fell heavily, and the last time she lay motionless, her face pressed against the short grass blades.