Ned's hot tongue clove to the roof of his hot mouth, but he obstinately refused to look at the river.

He did not think that he could stand another sight of it.
He went back to his little lair among the shrubs and prayed for night, blessed night with its cooling touch.

He had a horrible apprehension which amounted to conviction that the troops would stay there for several days, awaiting some maneuver or perhaps making it a rallying point, and that in his hiding place on the pyramid he was in as bad case as a sailor cast on a desert island without water.

Nothing seemed left for him but to steal down and try to escape in darkness.

Thus night would be doubly welcome and he prayed for it again and with renewed fervor.
Some hours are ten times as long as others, but the longest of all come to an end at last.