And no mountain seemed harder to
leave behind than this one. Owen, who knew that Laghouat was not
many miles distant, rode on in front, impatient to see the oasis
rise out of the desert. The wind still raged, driving the sand; and
before him stretched endless hillocks of yellow sand; and he
wandered among these, uncertain whither lay the road, until he
happened upon a little convoy bringing grain to the town. The convoy
turned to the left.... His mistake was that he had been looking to
the right.
Laghouat, built among rocks, some of which were white, showed up high
above the plain; and, notwithstanding his desire for food and
shelter, he sat on his horse at gaze, interested in the ramparts of
this black town, defended by towers, outlined upon a grey sky.
VIII
"When a woman has seen the guest she no longer cares for the master."
An old hunter had told him this proverb, a lame, one-eyed man, an
outcast from his tribe, or very nearly, whose wife was so old that
Owen's presence afforded him no cause for jealousy, a friend of the
hunter who owned the eagles, so Owen discovered, but not until the
end of a week's acquaintance, which was strange, for he had seen a
great deal of this man in the last few days.
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