For myself I require no excuse, for I was not conscious of wrong-doing. But then, I have already tried to explain to the reader something of those terms of pleasant familiarity on which I and my conscience dwelt together. I am sure it should be a function of any true religion to promote this cheery co-partnership, and that if it were only commoner there would be far more agreeable people in the world. I always take at their word those who go about calling themselves “miserable sinners,” and I notice this always seems to disconcert them.
We had been for some time out of sight of land, as the coast of Tripoli had fallen away from us into the great Bay of Sidra, but now, on the morning after our discussion, I saw for the first time the edge of the great Libyan Desert.
We still carried a breeze with us, but inland of us the sea lay becalmed, so smooth it seemed to be some viscous sea like that imagined by the Ancient Mariner, while the miraged atmosphere above it was fluid. The remotest part of this shimmering fluid was threaded by a thin line of broken points of yellow light, like fragments of the moon.
That was the distant coast, the margin of the great desert.
CHAPTER VII
I MOUNT A CAMEL
BY the next morning the coast was more distinct and we were still approaching it. But our progress was now very slow, and we could depend only on the land breeze of early morning and the sea-breeze of the evening.
The heat of the day was tremendous, or seemed so to me even under the awnings which were rigged fore and aft and kept constantly wet. Metal-work on deck became too hot to touch, and even the painted wooden bulwarks burned through one’s sleeves when leaned upon.
The Arabs worked unwillingly, dropping down and sleeping in any patch of shade that presented itself, and I constantly heard the horrid swish of Jakoub’s whip as he woke them. I spent the long intolerable days dripping in a hammock chair on deck, feverishly watching the sweep of the sun across the sky and calculating the hours to be endured before he would again become red and harmless in the healing vapours of the western horizon, and the sea-breeze would surprise me again with its chilliness. Or I gazed with aching eyes at the palpitating sand of the coast, wondering if it would be possible for me to live and move on it at all?
Edmund and Welfare had the acquired eastern habit of sleeping during the hot hours, and spent most of the time in their cabins, when they were not required on deck.
At that blessed hour before sunset, however, we met on deck, and Hassan brought up ingeniously cooled drinks for the party.