120 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



Sidi Hilal quarrelled with his uncle and, under sentence 

 of death, fled to Tobruk in forty-eight hours. The young 

 Sayed had described the horrors of the 250 kilometres 

 ride to me at a dinner in his house at Jedabia when, 

 amidst his rich carpets and brilliant clothes, he could 

 laugh at the memory of aching bones and failing strength. 



Abdul was conversant also with the doings of Rama- 

 dan Shetewi, the great Arab leader who for many years 

 held the ItaHans at bay in Tripolitania, but who was 

 killed a few months ago in a fight with the Orfella. It 

 appears that his alliance with Sayed Ahmed was but 

 lukewarm, for on one occasion, when he provided a body- 

 guard for a German mission which was taking a large 

 sum of money to the Sayed in Cyrenaica, his men had or- 

 ders to kill the unfortunate Teutons as soon as they were 

 out of sight of Misurata. Ramadan Shetewi took the offi- 

 cial gold and the mission's private wealth was divided 

 among the murderers. 



At noon Yusuf pointed to the faintest rise in the 

 distance. "Behind that hill is Bir Buttafal," he said, 

 and with visions of another green spot on our wonderful 

 map, we hoped to see at dusk one palm and a few tufts of 

 brushwood. Not a single blade of grass marks the slight 

 hollow. There is not a stone nor a stick nor a tuft of 

 green sage in all the wide expanse of thick, soft sand. 

 The day we arrived there was not even a hole. Before 

 we had time to ask where was the well, Abdullah and two 

 of the blacks apparently went mad. They flung them- 

 selves on their knees and with rhythmic cries began 

 burrowing rapidly, flinging the sand vigorously over their 

 shoulders. Only when they had sunk to their waists and 

 the heap around them began to grow dark and moist did 

 we realise that they were actually digging out the well, 

 which had been entirely filled in by the gibli of the 

 previous day. 



