This discomfort was the most serious he had
experienced, yet he felt it hardly at all, thinking that perhaps it
would have been very little use coming to the desert in a railway
train or in a mail coach. Only by such adventures is travel made
rememberable, and, looking out of his blankets, he was rewarded by a
sight which he felt would not be easily forgotten--the camels on
their knees about the drivers, who were feeding them from their
hands, the poor beasts leaning out their long necks to take what was
given to them--a wretched repast, yet their grunts were full of
satisfaction.
In the morning, however, they were irritable, and bleated angrily
when asked to kneel down so that their packs might be put upon them;
but in the end they submitted, and Owen noticed a certain strain of
cheerfulness in their demeanour all that day. Perhaps they scented
their destination. Owen's horse certainly scented a stable within a
day's journey of Laghouat, for he pricked up his ears, and there was
nothing else but the instinct of a stable that could have induced
him to do so, for on their left was a sinister mountain--sinister
always, Owen thought, even in the sunlight, but more sinister than
ever in the rainy season, wrapped in a cloud, showing here and there
a peak when the clouds lifted.
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