How
could I get down that almost perpendicular rock, and how could they get
up to me? How could they know that I was there?
And now the specter of starvation rose up before me in strongest force.
Should I try to find my way back again?--once more attempt the
darkness? No! no! Too precious was the daylight. It would not do. And
what could be gained? I could not possibly live to reach the bottom!
The twilight rested serenely on the encircling range of mountain snow,
then faded sweetly from the darkening sky.
The stars are beacons of hope and faith. Under them I lay down and
slept.
It was a refreshing slumber that I had beneath an unclouded sky, and
when I awoke it was early dawn. The cool air was grateful; and so
charming seemed all nature that I forgot my hunger and the isolation of
my position. I began, too, to examine the situation. I had emerged from
the cavern into open day by reason of the sudden termination of the
wall which I had had so long on my right. There was left the inner wall
as before, now exposed and forming the exterior of the mountain. I
stood on a platform of rock about four feet square.
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