"Here," cried the old woman, "sit here; for when the house falls, the weight will go yonder."
Lewis explained to the stranger. He glanced at the old woman.
"Old Immortality has brains," he said. "Might have known it, with those eyes."
They sat on the floor of beaten earth. The old woman went out. Through the gaps in the walls Lewis saw her build a fire and put a pot of the brackish water on to boil. Then he saw her drag the setting hen from her nest and wring its neck. He jumped up and rushed out.
"What are you doing?" he cried. "Why kill a setting hen?"
"Aye," said the old woman, "it is a pity, for she is the last chicken in the world."
Lewis and the stranger were hungry. Night was falling. There was no sign of their belated pack-train. When boiling had done its utmost, they ate the last chicken on earth. Before they had finished, a child, pitifully thin, came in, bearing on her head a small jar of water.
"Now drink," said the old woman, "for this water came from the river, twelve miles away."
They drank, then the stranger set his helmet on the floor for a pillow, laid his head upon it, and slept. Lewis sat beside him. The child had curled up in a corner. The guide was snoring outside. In the doorway the old woman crouched and crooned.
Presently she turned and peered into the house. She beckoned to Lewis. He rose and followed her. She led him around the house, through a thicket of thorn-trees, and up the slope of a small sand-dune. Toward the west sand-dunes rose and fell in monotonous succession.