‘A JOURNEY IN THE EAST, 337 
terribly heavy air of the valley of the Jordan is quite 
perceptible. 
We walked back to the castle with our Arab, and on 
arriving there he was entertained with food and drink, but at 
the same time deprived of his freedom for twelve hours in a 
closely-barred room. We, too, had a capital supper, the 
Count’s servants who waited on us being dressed in the 
costume of the country. I then hurried back to lie in wait 
for the Hyzenas. 
Meanwhile night had fallen, and the darkness which enve- 
loped the country was unfortunately made still more intense 
by the gathering clouds. Hodek, whom we found crouching 
in the ambush, said that some jackals had appeared soon after 
sunset. 
With iron endurance we lay waiting in our hiding-place 
until midnight, but as we could then hardly make out the 
place where the dead donkey was lying, we saw the hopeless- 
ness of the business. Had the ground been bare rock or the 
desert-sand of Egypt, our chances would have been better, 
but here, as throughout the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, it 
was covered with flat rocks and loose stones, mixed with dark 
grass. Our pleasant anticipations were thus destroyed, and 
we were moreover enduring perfect torments in this dark 
confined place of concealment, for the wind being good for 
our sport blew straight from the carrion, sending the most 
horrible stench through the loop-holes. Sometimes we 
thought that we heard beasts prowling round, while several 
people passed along the road singing, and the watch-dogs of 
the monastery and the castle howled piteously in the true 
Eastern fashion; but at midnight, as already said, I lost 
patience, and we all cautiously groped our way back to the 
castle. 
On the Ist of April I was called at sunrise and went 
out to see how the strychnine had worked; great was my 
z 
