The room in which David found himself was lofty and large, but was furnished with only a rough wooden bed, a rug, and a brazier.

Left alone, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and, for a few moments, his mind strayed almost vaguely from one object to another.

From two windows far up in the wall the moonlight streamed in, making bars of light aslant the darkness.
Not a sound broke the stillness.

Yet, to his sensitive nerves, the air seemed tingling with sensation, stirring with unseen activities.

Here the spirit of the desert seemed more insistent in its piercing vitality, because it was shut in by four stone walls.
Mechanically he took off his coat, and was about to fold and lay it on the rug beside the bed, when something hard in one of the pockets knocked against his knee.