Mogar.

As they rode in slowly, for their horses were tired and streaming with
heat after their long canter across the sands, both Domini and Androvsky
were struck by the novelty of this halting-place, which was quite unlike
anything they had yet seen. The ground rose gently but continuously for
a considerable time before they saw in the distance the pitched tents
with the dark forms of the camels and mules. Here they were out of the
sands, and upon hard, sterile soil covered with small stones embedded
in the earth. Beyond the tents they could see nothing but the sky,
which was now covered with small, ribbed grey clouds, sad-coloured and
autumnal, and a lonely tower built of stone, which rose from the waste
at about two hundred yards from the tents to the east. Although they
could see so little, however, they were impressed with a sensation that
they were on the edge of some vast vision, of some grandiose effect of
Nature, that would bring to them a new and astonishing knowledge of the
desert. Perhaps it was the sight of the distant tower pointing to
the grey clouds that stirred in them this almost excited feeling of
expectation.

"It is like a watch-tower," Domini said, pointing with her whip. "But
who could live in such a place, far from any oasis?"

"And what can it overlook?" said Androvsky. "This is the nearest horizon
line we have seen since we came into the desert."

"Yes, but----"

She glanced at him as they put their horses into a gentle canter. Then
she added:

"You, too, feel that we are coming to something tremendous, don't you?"

Her horse whinnied shrilly. Domini stroked his foam-flecked neck with
her hand.

"Abou is as full of anticipation as we are," she said. Androvsky was
looking towards the tower.

"That was built for French soldiers," he said. A moment afterwards he
added:

"I wonder why Batouch chose this place for us to camp in?"

There was a faint sound as of irritation in his voice.

"Perhaps we shall know in a minute," Domini answered. They cantered on.
Their horses' hoofs rang with a hard sound on the stony ground.

"It's inhospitable here," Androvsky said. She looked at him in surprise.

"I never knew you to take a dislike to any halting-place before," she
said. "What's the matter, Boris?"

He smiled at her, but almost immediately his face was clouded by the
shadow of a gloom that seemed to respond to the gloom of the sky. And he
fixed his eyes again upon the tower.

"I l