ps that is the reason why, when he does come across an occasion of
excitement, he is so terribly in earnest. He is months and months
without the chance of an emotion, accumulating explosive forces all the
while; and when he at last goes off, he does it like dynamite.

And yet, perhaps, the child of the desert, if he visited our shores,
might point to a ploughboy plodding up and down, with one foot in the
furrow, from dawn till dusk, and ask if _his_ task were lively. Or,
still more forcibly, he might take us into an office in a dingy city
street where copying clerks sat at their monotonous work, and put it to
us how many minutes in the week we supposed _they_ lived.

But still, though it might be difficult to deny that he had reason on
his side, there is a certain dreariness about the endless sandy plains
which renders it difficult to imagine it possible for a human being to
spend his days in traversing them without going mad.

But these present travellers did not seem to mind it. Some of them
solaced themselves with the chibouque, as they sat with the comfort
which can only be acquired after years of practice on the humps of their
camels; the others, though silent and quiescent, did not look bored.

Presently the one in front was attracted by an object a little out of
his path, and turned to examine it more closely. Then he spoke to his
hygeen, which knelt down, whereupon he dismounted, and went up to the
figure of a man lying on the sand. There had been a great deal of
fighting and carnage, beyond the ordinary blood-feuds between the
different tribes, going on for some months in the country, and the
bodies of men were as commonly found as those of camels used to be. So
it may seem surprising that the Arab should have taken the trouble to
dismount for such a trifle.

But this body was dressed, and had weapons--was worth despoiling, in
fact. This particular child of the desert was not more greedy than
others; he was a man in some authority, and rich according to his own
ideas and those of his people. But still, one does not like to see
articles of value unappropriated, and one might as well have them as any
one else. Such sentiments might animate you or me, let alone a
gentleman who had been brought up to regard all human beings who did not
belong to his own particular set much as we look upon beavers, foxes,
hares, grouse, pheasants, as creatures that are provided by Providence
for our sport or profit.