The
chances, however, were that the tent had just been taken up into the air
and dropped somewhere in this sea well on the way to New Zealand.
Obviously the tent was gone.
Face to face with real death one does not think of the things that
torment the bad people in the tracts, and fill the good people with
bliss. I might have speculated on my chances of going to Heaven; but
candidly I did not care. I could not have wept if I had tried. I had no
wish to review the evils of my past. But the past did seem to have been a
bit wasted. The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions: the road
to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities.
I wanted those years over again. What fun I would have with them: what
glorious fun! It was a pity. Well has the Persian said that when we come
to die we, remembering that God is merciful, will gnaw our elbows with
remorse for thinking of the things we have not done for fear of the Day
of Judgment.
And I wanted peaches and syrup--badly. We had them at the hut, sweeter
and more luscious than you can imagine. And we had been without sugar for
a month. Yes--especially the syrup.
Thus impiously I set out to die, making up my mind that I was not going
to try and keep warm, that it might not take too long, and thinking I
would try and get some morphia from the medical case if it got very bad.
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