That I should be lying so still and
passive, whilst the sharp night breeze walked free over my cheek,
and the cold damp clung to my hair, as though my face grew in the
earth and must bear with the footsteps of the wind and the falling
of the dew as meekly as the grass of the field. Besides, I got
puzzled and distracted by having to endure heat and cold at the
same time, for I was always considering whether my feet were not
over-devilled and whether my face was not too well iced. And so
when from time to time the watch quietly and gently kept up the
languishing fire, he seldom, I think, was unseen to my restless
eyes. Yet at last, when they called me and said that the morn
would soon be dawning, I rose from a state of half-oblivion not
much unlike to sleep, though sharply qualified by a sort of
vegetable's consciousness of having been growing still colder and
colder for many and many an hour.
CHAPTER XIII - THE DEAD SEA
The grey light of the morning showed us for the first time the
ground which we had chosen for our resting-place. We found that we
had bivouacked upon a little patch of barley plainly belonging to
the men of the caves. The dead bushes which we found so happily
placed in readiness for our fire had been strewn as a fence for the
protection of the little crop. This was the only cultivated spot
of ground which we had seen for many a league, and I was rather
sorry to find that our night fire and our cattle had spread so much
ruin upon this poor solitary slip of corn-land.
The saddling and loading of our beasts was a work which generally
took nearly an hour, and before this was half over daylight came.
We could now see the men of the caves. They collected in a body,
amounting, I should think, to nearly fifty, and rushed down towards
our quarters with fierce shouts and yells. But the nearer they got
the slower they went; their shouts grew less resolute in tone, and
soon ceased altogether. The fellows, however, advanced to a
thicket within thirty yards of us, and behind this "took up their
position." My men without premeditation did exactly that which was
best; they kept steadily to their work of loading the beasts
without fuss or hurry; and whether it was that they instinctively
felt the wisdom of keeping quiet, or that they merely obeyed the
natural inclination to silence which one feels in the early
morning, I cannot tell, but I know that, except when they exchanged
a syllable or two relative to the work they were about, not a word
was said. I now believe that this quietness of our party created
an undefined terror in the minds of the cave-holders and scared
them from coming on; it gave them a notion that we were relying on
some resources which they knew not of. Several times the fellows
tried to lash themselves into a state of excitement which might do
instead of pluck. They would raise a great shout and sway forward
in a dense body from behind the thicket; but when they saw that
their bravery thus gathered to a head did not even suspend the
strapping of a portmanteau or the tying of a hatbox, their shout
lost its spirit, and the whole mass was irresistibly drawn back
like a wave receding from the shore.
These attempts at an onset were repeated several times, but always
with the same result. I remained under the apprehension of an
attack for more than half-an-hour, and it seemed to me that the
work of packing and loading had never been done so slowly. I felt
inclined to tell my fellows to make their best speed, but just as I
was going to speak I observed that every one was doing his duty
already; I therefore held my peace and said not a word, till at
last Mysseri led up my horse and asked me if I were ready to mount.
We all marched off without hindrance.
After some time we came across a party of Ibrahim's cavalry, which
had bivouacked at no great distance from us. The knowledge that
such a force was in the neighbourhood may have conduced to the
forbearance of the cave-holders.
We saw a scraggy-looking fellow nearly black, and wearing nothing
but a cloth round the loins; he was tending flocks. Afterwards I
came up with another of these goatherds, whose helpmate was with
him. They gave us some goat's milk, a welcome present. I pitied
the poor devil of a goatherd for having such a very plain wife. I
spend an enormous quantity of pity upon that particular form of
human misery.
About midday I began to examine my map and to question my guide,
who at last fell on his knees and confessed that he knew nothing of
the country in which we were. I was thus thrown upon my own
resources, and calculating that on the preceding day we had nearly
performed a two days' journey, I concluded that the Dead Sea must
be near. In this I was right, for at about three or four o'clock
in the afternoon I caught a first sight of its dismal face.
I went on and came near to those waters of death. They stretched
deeply into the southern desert, and before me, and all around, as
far away as the eye could follow, blank hills piled high over
hills, pale, yellow, and naked, walled up in her tomb for ever the
dead and damned Gomorrah.
