A flash--momentary but
vivid--came over me, that I should be saved. Snatching a lighted
brand, I started through the storm. In the afternoon the storm abated
and the sun shone at intervals. Coming to a small clump of trees, I
set to work to prepare a camp. I laid the brand down which I had
preserved with so much care, to pick up a few dry sticks with which to
feed it, until I could collect wood for a camp-fire and in the few
minutes thus employed it expired. I sought to revive it, but every
spark was gone. Clouds obscured the sun, now near the horizon, and the
prospect of another night of exposure without fire became fearfully
imminent. I sat down with my lens and the last remaining piece of
touchwood I possessed to catch a gleam of sunshine, feeling that my
life depended upon it. In a few minutes the cloud passed, and with
trembling hands I presented the little disk to the face of the glowing
luminary. Quivering with excitement lest a sudden cloud should
interpose, a moment passed before I could hold the lens steadily
enough to concentrate a burning focus. At length it came. The little
thread of smoke curled gracefully upwards from the Heaven-lighted
spark, which, a few moments afterwards, diffused with warmth and
comfort my desolate lodgings.

I resumed my journey the next morning, with the belief that I should
make no more fires with my lens. I must save a brand, or perish. The
day was raw and gusty; an east wind, charged with storm, penetrated my
nerves with irritating keenness. After walking a few miles the storm
came on, and a coldness unlike any other I had ever felt seized me. It
entered all my bones. I attempted to build a fire, but could not make
it burn. Seizing a brand, I stumbled blindly on, stopping within the
shadow of every rock and clump to renew energy for a final conflict
for life. A solemn conviction that death was near, that at each pause
I made my limbs would refuse further service, and that I should sink
helpless and dying in my path, overwhelmed me with terror. Amid all
this tumult of the mind, I felt that I had done all that man could do.
I knew that in two or three days more I could effect my deliverance,
and I derived no little satisfaction from the thought that, as I now
was in the broad trail, my remains would be found, and my friends
relieved of doubt as to my fate. Once only the thought flashed across
my mind that I should be saved, and I seemed to hear a whispered
command to "Struggle o