THE EXPLORATION OF LAKE CHAD 



75 



the palace guards, whose talk fell more fitfully as the hours 

 wore on, sinking at last into profound silence. When I lay- 



down to sleep, Aquila had not stepped far down from her 

 throne in the meridian, and as I lay thinking through the 

 weary hours my eyes had followed her to her setting in the 

 west. It was midnight when she left the earth and all my 

 hope seemed departed too, when, lo, the figure of a man, wrapt 

 in white, stood out upon the roof of the mosque, clear cut 



