The shadow of the cliffs extended for some distance, like a blue veil, but further ahead the sun still struck down upon the Oasis, and the mellow light, seen between the tree-trunks and foliage, was made so rich by contrast with the cool tones of the shadowed foreground that Muriel was constrained to remark on its beauty. Pigeons fluttered to and fro amongst the trees, those close at hand being white as snow, but those in the sunlit distance appearing to flash before the eyes like gilded birds of a fairy tale.
Soon they passed out of the shadow, and now the sunlight was sprinkled upon them from between the rustling palm-branches overhead, and the dust of their footsteps was like a haze of powdered gold. Before them, in a clearing, a number of rough buildings, some of them whitewashed, encircled an open space of sun-baked ground wherein a number of natives sauntered to and fro. Here there were a few stalls, sheltered by tenting or tattered fragments of brown camel-cloth: grain being on sale at one of them; at another, basket-work; at another, pottery.
The loiterers and salesmen greeted Daniel with polite salaams, and to some of them he spoke a few words; but they were too well-mannered, or perhaps too indifferent, to show any particular interest in Muriel, and even when she paused to pat the shaven head of a little naked urchin, and to give him a piastre, there were few curious eyes upon her. The villagers seemed to be dawdling through a peaceful dream, unruffled by the ardours and eagerness to which the Westerner is accustomed; and Muriel had the feeling that she had come into a lull in the breeze of life, as when a sailing boat is becalmed and the sails flap idly. Even the tempest in her heart was quietened, and the warmth of the evening caused her to feel a languor that was temporarily almost serene.
Daniel led her across the open ground to a lane between the ramshackle buildings on the far side. Here, at a crazy-looking door, he paused.
“I want you just to shake hands with an old man,” he said. “He acted as guide years ago to one of your father’s predecessors.”
“There’s no need to say who I am, is there?” she asked, a little anxiously.
He smiled. “Your dragoman will have spread the news already.”
“I told him not to,” she answered.
Daniel made a gesture of impatience. “We must try to correct that,” he said. “Secrecy is very unpleasant, though it is sometimes necessary. You’ll find it always best to be frank when you can.”
In response to his knocking the door was opened by a small, smirking boy, and they entered a little yard, wherein a clean cow, several emaciated hens, and a couple of goats wandered about in front of a two-roomed house, the rear wall of which appeared to be about to collapse. Here a dim-eyed old man sat upon a native bedstead of split palm-branches, engaged in hunting for fleas in his cloak, and, as his gnarled old fingers plucked at the folds, his grey-bearded mouth was pursed and pushed forward in the manner of a monkey.