Then I tried another grape, but could perceive no slightest movement of mouth or throat.
"Doubt," I said to myself, "may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing." So tight was the skin upon her bones that I dared not use friction.
I crept into the heap of leaves, got as close to her as I could, and took her in my arms.

I had not much heat left in me, but what I had I would share with her! Thus I spent what remained of the night, sleepless, and longing for the sun.

Her cold seemed to radiate into me, but no heat to pass from me to her.
Had I fled from the beautiful sleepers, I thought, each on her "dim, straight" silver couch, to lie alone with such a bedfellow! I had refused a lovely privilege: I was given over to an awful duty! Beneath the sad, slow-setting moon, I lay with the dead, and watched for the dawn.
The darkness had given way, and the eastern horizon was growing dimly clearer, when I caught sight of a motion rather than of anything that moved--not far from me, and close to the ground.

It was the low undulating of a large snake, which passed me in an unswerving line.
Presently appeared, making as it seemed for the same point, what I took for a roebuck-doe and her calf.

Again a while, and two creatures like bear-cubs came, with three or four smaller ones behind them.