I could not even have fled had I wished to do so, for my leader had locked the creaking door behind him, and taken away the ladder.

After carefully examining the chapel and my neatly-furnished apartment in this dreary prison- house, I mounted the staircase, and gained the summit of the tower.
Here I had a splendid view of the country round about, my elevated position enabling me distinctly to trace the greater part of the desert, with its several rows of hills and mountains skirting the horizon.

All these hills were alike barren and naked; not a tree nor a shrub, not a human habitation, could I discover.

Silence lay heavily on every thing around, and it seemed to me almost as though no earth might here nourish a green tree, but that the place was ordained to remain a desert, as a lasting memorial of our Saviour's fasting.

Unheeded by human eye, the sun sank beneath the mountains; I was, perhaps, the only mortal here who was watching its beautiful declining tints.