“The lady blushes at the suggestion,” I said. “Look, really blushes.” The sun had just sunk below the horizon, and the great peaks ahead, still catching the rays now hidden to us, turned rose-colour, then darker red, then faded to purple, and last cold blue. A minute later they were but a white patch against the opal sky, and then they had disappeared.
“She thinks your remarks are flippant and has veiled herself, Forsyth,” I continued.
“Well, what about a meal if Wrexham has done his calculations? The lower hills, too, are fading fast now.”
We moved back to the tent, and while Payindah was bringing food Wrexham told us how his calculations had worked out. By his reckoning the hills should be about fifty-odd miles away: the low hills, of course, not the snow-peak which was not showing when he had taken his bearings from the two ends of his base-line. The fifth day from now should, therefore, see us at the foot, reckoning on twelve miles a day average if we started early each morning.
During the next three days we did thirty-eight miles, and as we went the dunes began to get lower, and by the evening of the second day, the ninth day of our march, were not more than thirty feet high. The desert was ever the same, greyish sand-dunes, now wind-tossed once more, for the wind had risen again, though not with the same violence that had marked the earlier days of our journey.
On the evening of the ninth day the snow-peak had sunk much lower, from which we were the more convinced that it lay some way behind the long wall of rock which now filled all our northeast horizon. Wrexham measured it again, and made us out twenty-three miles from the near hills, somewhat more than his last estimate had been, taken at much over double the distance. The snow mountain he considered at least fifty miles beyond the first hills.
On the eleventh day we did a good march, covering thirteen miles, thanks to much lower dunes. Not bad going for the camels, who were very done by now from want of grazing and water. In the afternoon we remarked some distance away to our right another bit of rock formation, and Forsyth was for making for it. He said it must be the line that was mentioned in the diary. Wrexham at first considered it would be better to stick to our original bearing which had done us so well. Then, since going was now easy and the rock formation not more than a couple of miles off our line, we decided to head for it. It added a little to the march, but nothing noticeable. As we got near, we could see that the hill was somewhat higher and longer than the last, as, indeed, one would expect, it being nearer to the main chain. It must have been one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy feet above the surrounding sand.
As we got closer, Forsyth and I pushed on ahead, climbing up it some way in front of the rest, and, to our surprise, as we neared the top, a couple of birds flew up. This first sign of life after eleven days of barren, lifeless desert was a pleasant find, and made us feel that we had surmounted the first lap of our difficulties, and that, whatever lay before us, at least we were in habitable country once more.
This formation differed from the last in being a razor-back all along with no central depression. Clearly we should have to camp at the foot of it. But it would give us a fine view of the hills from which to plan the morrow’s march.
But our greatest surprise was when Forsyth climbed to the crest line and then shouted to me: