aw attention.
His face was full of quiet grandeur and impressive calm, and the sad
tranquillity which comes to those who know what human life is through
continual human death. Although, in the matter of bodily strength, he
was little past the prime of life, his long and abundant hair was white,
and his broad and upright forehead marked with the meshes of the net
of care. But drought and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to
change or weaken the fine expression of his large, sad eyes. Those eyes
alone would have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep
with settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow. Such eyes
might fitly have told the grief of Adrastus, son of Gordias, who, having
slain his own brother unwitting, unwitting slew the only son of his
generous host and savior.

The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had made.
My father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form upright
against the deepening background. He gazed as if the course of life lay
vanishing below him, while level land and waters drew the breadth of
shadow over them. Then the last gleam flowed and fled upon the face of
ocean, and my father put his dry lips to my forehead, saying nothing.

His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for three
days; but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and even
tremulous. "Let us run, let us run, my dear father!" I cried. "Delicious
water! The dark falls quickly; but we can get there before dark. It is
all down hill. Oh, do let us run at once!"

"Erema," he answered, with a quiet smile, "there is no cause now for
hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to do, my
child. For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky. We have escaped from
that starving desert at a spot--at a spot where we can see--"

For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony seat,
and the hand with which he tried to point some distant landmark fell
away. His face, which had been so pale before, became of a deadly
whiteness, and he breathed with gasps of agony. I knelt before him and
took his hands, and tried to rub the palms, and did whatever I could
think of.

"Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every thing
to me! What a brute I was to let you do it! But I did not know; I never
knew! Please God to take me also!"

He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but he
firmly lifted his arm