All the next day the rain continued.  Owen watched it falling into the yellow sand blown into endless hillocks; “Very drie, very drie,” he said, recalling a phrase of his own north country.  Overhead a low grey sky stooped, with hardly any movement in it, the grey moving slowly as the caravan struggled on through grey and yellow colour—­ the colour of emptiness, of the very void.  It seemed to him that he could not get any wetter; but there is no end to the amount of moisture clothes can absorb, a bournous especially, and soon the rain was pouring down Owen’s neck; but he would not be better off if he ordered the caravan to stop and his servants to pitch his tent under a sand-dune.  Besides, it would be dangerous to do this, for the wind was rising, and their hope was to reach a caravansary before nightfall.

“And it is not yet mid-day,” Owen said to himself, thinking of the endless hours that lay before him, and of his wonderful horse, so courageous and so patient in adversity, never complaining, though he sank at every step to over his fetlocks in the sand.  Owen wondered what the animal was thinking about, for he seemed quite cheerful, neighing when Owen leaned forward and petted him.  To lean forward and stroke his horse’s neck, and speak a few words of encouragement to one who needed no encouragement, was all there was for him to do during that long day’s march.

“If he could only speak to me,” Owen said, feeling he needed encouragement; and he tried to take refuge in the past, trying to memorise his life, what it had been from the beginning, just as if he were going to write a book.  When his memory failed him he called his dragoman and began an Arabic lesson.  It is hard to learn Arabic at any time, and impossible to learn it in the rain; and after acquiring a few words he would ride up and down, trying the new phrases upon the camel-drivers, admirable men who never complained, running alongside of their animals, urging them forward with strange cries.  Owen admired their patience; but their cries in the end jarred his highly-strong nerves, and he asked himself if it were not possible for them to drive camels without uttering such horrible sounds, and appealed to the dragoman, who advised him to allow the drivers to do their business as they were in the habit of doing it, for it was imperative they should reach the caravansary that night.  The wind was rising, and storms in the desert are not only unpleasant, but dangerous.  Owen tried to fall asleep in the saddle, and he almost succeeded in dozing; anyhow, he seemed to wake from some sort of stupor at the end of the day, just before nightfall, for he started, and nearly fell, when his dragoman called to him, telling him they were about to enter the ravine on the borders of which the caravansary was situated.