The death of an emporer

Before sentence he had watched his shipmates dying in agony in front of him, twisting and turning upon the stake, the screams, the stench of burning human flesh and the crackling of the sticks and logs searing into his consciousness.

Candle in hand and taken in the direction of the stake he was, for reasons he could not fathom, at the last moment, turned towards a side door leading down in to dank stairway, which ended upon a dock where he was thrust into a cage. From behind the bars of the cage he had asked why he had been spared .A small dark pockmarked man had thrust his face between the bars and declared in broken English 

"You first have to serve ten years in the galleys

The airman dozed in the dry heat. Finely blown sand particles settled in the eye sockets, nostrils and on the lips. Upon awakening at suppertime, he would feel itchy and drawn, but for now, there is an escape from the isolation, the heat, the flies, and the general feeling of hopelessness of being confined to the middle of nowhere. He is in a black pit. Water bubbles around him. Sunlight arched downward, the  source growing ever brighter. He fisted his hands in order to wipe away the accumulated sand from his eyes. He spotted a line of camels upon the shimmering horizon in. If he stared long enough he could turn the line in to a fleet of sailing ships upon a sparkling sea.

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