FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE 187 



Abdullah murmured something incoherent about going 

 to the village and the remark galvanised me into action. 

 Once the Zouias knew of that message we should be 

 prisoners. It, therefore, behoved us to send someone 

 reliable to Taj to find out what had happened before the 

 suspicious tribesmen set a guard round our camp. 

 Mohammed was the only possible person and he loathed 

 the idea, for had he not the written order of the Sayed's 

 wakil that he was not to move? However, he yielded to 

 persuasion. Perhaps the long miles trudged side by side 

 through hot sands under a hotter sun, the precious water 

 shared, the jokes over our aching feet, the first cold nights 

 when we had divided our blankets and coats, above all, 

 the day we had torn up the baggage saddles together and 

 distributed the straw to our starving animals with little 

 hope that we could ever provide them with another meal, 

 all bore fruit. "Wallahi!" he swore. "I shall discover 

 the truth." Abdullah almost lost his self-control. He 

 burst into the tent with the cowardly Abdul Rahim, while 

 Hassanein was penning a tactful letter to the kaimakaan. 

 Angiy protests flowed from his lips. He threatened to 

 fetch the Zouias. The little commandant stuttered feeble 

 futilities. Mohammed wavered. 



At that moment I saw the dream of so many scorch- 

 ing days and weary nights fading like the mirage of noon. 

 The object I had striven for, laboured for, for which I 

 had studied Arabic during gay London summers, for 

 which I had plotted in Cyrenaica, for which I had pored 

 over route maps and charts from Khartoum to Tripoli, 

 for which I had waded through ponderous tomes from 

 Ptolemy to Behm and Duveyrier, balanced trembling in 

 the scale of this man's mind. Every nerve and sinew, 

 still aching from our almost intolerable journey, spoke of 

 the strenuous effort made. Surely this must weigh 

 heavier than Abdullah's guile. It did! Somehow the 



