PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 23 



with i:he intricacies of the jerd and picturing myself 

 dressed in Sayed Rida's splendid gift offering sweet 

 mint tea to reverend sheikhs. Thereafter we erased any 

 verbs expressive of desire from our vocabulary, but we 

 did not succeed in evading our host's royal generosity. 

 We wanted a couple of small sacks into which to put 

 a week's supply of rice and flour, for once we left 

 Jedabia we should have seven or eight days' journey 

 to the next oasis, and we planned to send the baggage 

 camels ahead and ride light on the fastest beasts we could 

 find. With this intention we again despatched the 

 brightly clad Mustapha to the suq. Ten minutes later 

 he was brought firmly back by the Head of the Police, 

 a stalwart black with a hard, keen face. Our follower 

 was protesting wildly, but to deaf ears, for behind him 

 came the ebony confidant, Haji Abdel Salam. "I will 

 send you the sacks," he told me in the tone of a parent 

 scolding a foolish child. "The Sayed wishes to give you 

 everything you can need." Even Hassanein Bey's elo- 

 quence failed him, while I wondered if we were living in 

 one of the tales of the Arabian Nights. 



Our peace, however, was short-lived. For the first 

 few days at Jedabia we were in a fool's paradise. All 

 round us lay the desert. It seemed so easy a thing to 

 hire a few camels and a guide and disappear over the 

 rim of the horizon. By the fourth day we had discovered 

 a few of the most important difficulties. Firstly, there 

 were no camels. There had been an excellent harvest. 

 The Beduin was rich and he didn't want to work. It was 

 impossible to explain the exact destination of the caravan, 

 for the Holy Oasis is far beyond the bourne of most 

 camel-drivers' dreams. Secondly, all work had to be 

 done in secret, because the whole of our household were 

 spies with the possible exception of the black cook, Ali. 

 Mustapha had been in the Ufficio Politico and he 



