of Obak. The sun
blazed upon it from six in the morning with an intolerable heat, and all
night the wind blew across it piercingly cold, and played with the sand
as it would, building pyramids house-high and levelling them, tunnelling
valleys, silting up long slopes, so that the face of the country was
continually changed. The vultures and the sand-grouse held it
undisturbed in a perpetual tenancy. And to make the spot yet more
desolate, there remained scattered here and there the bleached bones and
skeletons of camels to bear evidence that about these wells once the
caravans had crossed and halted; and the remnants of a house built of
branches bent in hoops showed that once Arabs had herded their goats and
made their habitation there. Now the sun rose and set, and the hot sky
pressed upon an empty round of honey-coloured earth. Silence brooded
there like night upon the waters; and the absolute stillness made it a
place of mystery and expectation.

Yet in this month of May one man sojourned by the wells and sojourned
secretly. Every morning at sunrise he drove two camels, swift
riding-mares of the pure Bisharin breed, from the belt of trees, watered
them, and sat by the well-mouth for the space of three hours. Then he
drove them back again into the shelter of the trees, and fed them
delicately with dhoura upon a cloth; and for the rest of the day he
appeared no more. For five mornings he thus came from his hiding-place
and sat looking toward the sand-dunes and Berber, and no one approached
him. But on the sixth, as he was on the point of returning to his
shelter, he saw the figures of a man and a donkey suddenly outlined
against the sky upon a crest of the sand. The Arab seated by the well
looked first at the donkey, and, remarking its grey colour, half rose to
his feet. But as he rose he looked at the man who drove it, and saw that
while his jellab was drawn forward over his face to protect it from the
sun, his bare legs showed of an ebony blackness against the sand. The
donkey-driver was a negro. The Arab sat down again and waited with an
air of the most complete indifference for the stranger to descend to
him. He did not even move or turn when he heard the negro's feet
treading the sand close behind him.

"Salam aleikum," said the negro, as he stopped. He carried a long spear
and a short one, and a shield of hide. These he laid upon the ground and
sat by the Arab's side.

The Arab bowed his head and returned the s