contentment that he lay down again to rest or to take what might come.

Again he lay with his head on his arm in the scorching sands, with his
hat above his face, and again his dreams alternated with consciousness
of the desolation about him--alternated and mingled so that he no longer
knew when he did not sleep. And again he was tortured to wakefulness, to
thirst, and to heat, by the yellow hair brandished before him.

He sat up until he was quite awake, and then sank back upon the sand
again, relieved to find that he felt too weak to walk further. His mind
had become suddenly cleared so that he seemed to see only realities, and
those in their just proportions. He knew he had passed sentence of death
upon himself, knew he had been led to sin by his own arrogance of soul.
It came to him in all its bare, hard simplicity, stripped of the
illusions and conceits in which his pride had draped it, thrusting sharp
blades of self-condemnation through his heart. In that moment he doubted
all things. He knew he had sinned past his own forgiveness, even if
pardon had come from on high; knew that no agony of spear and thorns
upon the cross could avail to take him from the hell to which his own
conscience had sent him.

He was quite broken. Not since the long-gone night on the river-flat
across from Nauvoo had tears wet his eyes. But they fell now, and from
sheer, helpless grief he wept. And then for the first time in two days
he prayed--this time the prayer of the publican:--

"_God be merciful to me, a sinner_."

Over and over he said the words, chokingly, watering the hot sands with
his tears. When the paroxysm had passed, it left him, weak and prone,