The provisions and blankets were
with him. I do not think that at any point of my journey I
had ever felt fear - panic that is - till now. Starvation
stared me in the face. My wits refused to suggest a line of
action. I was stunned. I felt then what I have often felt
since, what I still feel, that it is possible to wrestle
successfully with every difficulty that man has overcome, but
not with that supreme difficulty - man's stupidity. It did
not then occur to me to give a name to the impatience that
seeks to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.
I turned back, retraced my steps till I came to the track of
the mules. Luckily the ground retained the footprints,
though sometimes these would be lost for a hundred yards or
so. Just as I anticipated - Samson had wound round the base
of the very first hill he came to; then, instead of
correcting the deviation, and steering for the mountains, had
simply followed his nose, and was now travelling due east, -
in other words, was going back over our track of the day
before. It was past noon when I overtook him, so that a
precious day's labour was lost.
I said little, but that little was a sentence of death.
'After to-day,' I began, 'we will travel separately.'
At first he seemed hardly to take in my meaning. I explained
it.
