“The rainy season is at hand,” Owen said; and he watched the clouds gathering rapidly into storm in the middle of the sky.  Now and again, when the clouds divided, a glimpse was gotten of a range of mountains, seven crests—­“seven heads,” the dragoman called them, and he told Owen the name in Arabic.  These mountains were reached the following day, and, after passing through numberless defiles, the caravan debouched on a plain covered with stones, bright as if they had been polished by hand—­a naked country torn by the sun, in which nothing grew, not even a thistle.  In the distance were hills whose outline zigzagged, now into points like a saw, and now into long sweeping curves like a scythe; and these hills were full of narrow valleys, bare as threshing-floors.  The heat hung in these valleys, and Owen rode through them, choking, for the space of a long windless day, in which nothing was heard except the sound of the horses’ hooves and the caw of a crow flying through the vague immensity.

But the ugliness of these valleys was exceeded by the ugliness of the marsh at whose edge they encamped next day—­a black, evil-smelling marsh full of reeds and nothing more.  The question arose whether potable water would be found, and they all went out, Owen included, to search for a spring.

After searching for some time one was found in possession of a number of grey vultures and enormous crows, ranged in a line along the edges, and in the distance these seemed like men stooping in a hurry to drink.  It was necessary to fire a gun to disperse these sinister pilgrims.  But in the Sahara a spring is always welcome, even when it carries a taste of magnesia; and there was one in the water they had discovered, not sufficient to discourage the camels, who drank freely enough, but enough to cause Owen to make a wry face after drinking.  All the same, it was better than the water they carried in the skins.  The silence was extraordinary, and, hearing the teeth of the camels shearing the low bushes of their leaves, Owen looked round, surprised by the strange resonance of the air and the peculiar tone of blue in the sky, trivial signs in themselves, but recognisable after the long drought.  He remembered how he had experienced for the last few days a presentiment that rain was not far off, a presentiment which he could not attribute to his imagination, and which was now about to be verified.  A large cloud was coming up, a few heavy drops fell, and during the night the rain pattered on the canvas; and he fell asleep, hoping that the morning would be fine, though he had been told the rain would not cease for days; and they were still several days’ journey from Laghouat, where they would get certain news of eagles and gazelles, for the Arab who had first told Owen about the gazelle-hunters admitted (Owen cursed him for not having admitted it before) that the gazelles did not come down from the hills until after the rains and the new grass began to spring up.