"I think this must be one of the old halting places," Zaki said, looking round as they dismounted. "See, my lord, there are some broken gourds, and some rags scattered about."
"So there are," Gregory said. "We will take the bridles out of the horses' mouths, so that they can chew the leaves up better; and then we will see if we can find where the wells were."
Twenty yards farther away they found a deep hole.
"This was one of them," the lad said, "but it is quite dry. See, there is an old bucket lying at the bottom. I will look about; there may be some more of them."
Two others were discovered, and the sand at the bottom of one of them looked a somewhat darker colour than the others.
"Well, we will dig here," Gregory said. "Bring down those two half gourds; they will help us to shovel the sand aside."
The bottom of the hole was some six feet across, and they set to work in the middle of it. By the time they had got down two feet, the sand was soft and clammy.
"We will get to water, Zaki, if we have to stay here all day!" said Gregory.
It was hard work, and it was not until after four hours' toil that, to their delight, they found the sand wet under their feet. They had taken it by turns to use the scoop, for the labour of making the hole large enough for them both to work at once would have been excessive.
In another hour there was half an inch of water in the hole. Gregory took a gourd, and buried it in the soft soil until the water flowed in over the brim.