“Mr. Wyr,” called Antoine, “how far away is that village that the lad sees?”
“To the southwest, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“About forty miles, you know. That’s in the Fayum.”
“What?”
“Yes, yes, Perry, that is a mirage. You don’t see the village at all, you only see the reflection in the sky.”
There was an instant’s pause, and then the boy said slowly:
“Well, I can see, now, how any one would get lost on the desert in a hurry. I’d have started off to walk to that village without even stopping to think.”
“There are a jolly lot of skeletons of people who have done that, and the jackals have picked them clean,” the survey man replied. “Take my tip, Perry, and don’t start for any oasis that you don’t see clearly marked on a map. I’ve been puzzled many a time by seeing to my right or left a village that I knew by compass to be straight ahead. So, I think, instead of trying to reach that village you see there in the sky, we’ll keep straight on and be content with reaching Tamia to-night.”
The afternoon march was a long one, five caravan hours, and when at last the camels reached the village which is the last source of water for the Libyan desert, Perry’s back felt as if it were a jig-saw puzzle that had been wrongly pieced together.