302 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



in the empty oil jars or if we were so near civilisation 

 that an aeroplane had become a possibihty. Then I 

 remembered the desert drums of the French Sahara, for 

 which no human fingers are responsible, and I wondered 

 if, when one is very near akin to the Spirit of the Earth, 

 one can hear the beat of her pulse. 



I turned on my big blond beast to ask Hassanein 

 what he thought of the strange throbbing and instead 

 of a crouched figure swaying monotonously on the grey 

 Tebu, I saw a heap pick itself briskly from a patch of 

 stones. "I think I have broken my collar-bone!" 

 said a calm, laughing voice. "You wouldn't say it 

 quite so happily if you had I'" I grunted, with memories 

 of hunting falls. "Perhaps not," rephed my companion, 

 clambering back on to his camel. "All the same, 

 there's a most enormous lump. I beheve I have." 

 And, though the voice still laughed, I grasped suddenly 

 that it spoke disastrous truth! Camels were roughly 

 barraked. Yusuf, for once bereft of speech, stumbled 

 round, mutely offering most of his clothing as bandages. 

 Abu Bekr, practical and brutal, wished to massage the 

 lump as a sprain. I blessed for once the cumbersome 

 length of the red hezaam. Bandages and sling it made 

 at the same time and left an end over to fix a cushion 

 under the armpit. 



All the time Hassaneiu was cheerfully explaining 

 that the Tebu had thoughtlessly stumbled just as he was 

 practising gymnastics, in order to extract a blanket from 

 some mysterious recess among the baggage sacks, but 

 we gave him short time for talk. We hustled him into 

 a roughly made "basoor" and a pitiful httle procession 

 started off again, for suddenly the silver night had 

 become desperately lonely, the dnmiming of the jinns 

 sinister and the trail to Siwa, with half -exhausted camels 

 and none too willing men, a thing of intolerable length. 



