The sun was nearly overhead, and Kit sat in the hot dust that lay about the wady. A low bank rose behind him and shaded his head. His eyes hurt, he was tired, and his burned skin was sore, for the dust stung as if it were mixed with alkali. In the open one could hardly front the sun, but the nights were keen, and at daybreak he had got up shivering from his hard bed behind a stone.
Macallister, Simon, and three sailors from Mossamedes occupied the narrow belt of shade. Their poses were cramped and awkward, for all tried to get some shelter from the sun. They had lunched frugally on gofio, goat's-milk cheese, and a little sour wine. Gofio is roasted grain, ground and mixed with water. The gritty paste stuck to Kit's parched mouth, for he tried to control his thirst. The skin in which they had brought water from the ketch did not hold much.
The map in Wolf's office indicated an oasis not very far from the coast, and Kit imagined that where water was he would find the Berbers. Since the wady ran nearly straight inland, he resolved to use it for a guide, and for three days the party had laboured across the dust and stones. As a rule, the hollow was not deep or sharply marked. For the most part, easy slopes led to a bare tableland where the soil, swept and consolidated by the wind, looked like rock. In places, however, the hollow pierced rolling ground and sank to a stony ravine.
The country was strangely desolate, but was not the level, sandy desert Kit had thought. In fact, there was not much sand, and in spots it looked as if the soil was sometimes cultivated. The bank behind Kit's camp was sharply cut as if by an angry torrent, but since he had left the beach he had not seen water. There was not a rabbit or a partridge, although in the dry Canaries rabbits haunt the stony ravines and red-legged partridges run in the prickly pear. Nothing but a pair of buzzards, floating very high up, had crossed the sky.
Half closing his eyelids, Kit looked about. Strange reflections quivered across the stones and distant objects were magnified. In the foreground, the light was dazzling, and the hollow melted into a luminous belt of brown and yellow. A euphorbia bush with stiff, thick stalks, however, was harshly green and looked like a house, although it was but four or five feet high. The euphorbia puzzled Kit; in a country where one found no water, its stalks were tender with milky sap. He glanced at his companions. Their cotton clothes had gone yellow, their skin was brown, and he thought one could not distinguish them a short distance off. An hour since he imagined somebody had looked out from behind a stone. Although he wanted to meet the Berbers, he did not want to think they cautiously followed his track.
He mused about the barrenness of the country. At Lanzarote, sixty miles from the African coast, it sometimes did not rain for six or eight months, and then, when the concrete cisterns were nearly dry, it rained in floods. Perhaps it was like that in Morocco; sheep and camels could not live if it did not rain at all. Kit began to think about the good bishop who used all his fortune to send the people of Lanzarote water.
A sailor shouted, and Kit jumped up. A cloud of dust rolled down the wady, and in the dust, about sixty yards off, men on camels rode for the camp. Kit watched their advance with dull surprise. A few moments since he had seen nobody and a camel is a large object to hide. It looked as if the Berbers had sprung from the sand. Then he heard the humming flight of a stone and a camel swerved. A sailor laughed hoarsely and stooped to get another stone for his sling, but Kit stopped the man. He had come to meet the Berbers and they carried long guns. Had they meant to hurt him, they could have hidden behind the stones and shot the party.
For all that, when they pulled up a few yards off, his heart beat and coolness was hard. They were big, muscular fellows and the nearest looked scornfully fierce; Kit could not see the others' faces because they wore loose hoods. One or two of the Spaniards had drawn their knives, but nobody moved. The little party stood against the bank and looked at the Berbers. Then Kit braced himself and signed to the interpreter.
For a few moments Simon and one of the others talked, but the Berber's remarks were short. His pose was easy, but very still, and the long gun he balanced somehow emphasised his height. He was like a bronze and blue statue, and Kit thought his quietness forbidding. The camel moved its long neck and grunted.
"He says we must go with him," Simon remarked. "His chief is waiting. That is all."