convent, struck upon his ear to tell how the
hours passed. Frequently he would stop and
listen for some sound that might betoken the
vicinity of man ; but the solitude of the desert,
the silence of the tomb, are not so still and
deep as the oppresive desolation by which he
was encompassed. His heart sunk within him,
and he threw himself dejectedly upon his
couch of straw. Here sleep gradually
obliterated the consciousness of misery, and bland
dreams wafted his delighted spirit to scenes
which were once glowing realities for him, in
whose ravisbing illusions he soon lost the
remembrance that he was Tolfi’s prisoner.
When he awoke, it was daylight; but how
long he had slept he knew not. It might be
early morning, or it might be sultry noon, for
he could measure time by no other note of its
progress than light and darkness. He had
been so happy in his sleep, amid friends that
loved him, and sweeter endearments of those
who loved him as friends could not, that in
the first moments of waking, his startled mind
seemed to admit the knowledge of his situation,
as if it had burst upou it for the first
tima, fresh in all its appalling horrors. He
gazed round with an air of doubt and amazement,
and took up a handful of the straw upon
which he lay, as though he would ask himself
what it meant. But memory, too faithful to
her office, soon unveiled the melancholy past,
while reason, shuddering at the task, flashed
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