e question was,
could the doorway be barricaded in such a way as to prevent the
intrusion of further visitors?

The wind continued to rise, and he lay rolled in his blanket,
uncomfortable, frightened, listening to the wind raging among the
rocks and palms, and, between his short, starting sleeps, wondering
if it would not have been better to lie in the ravine, in some
crevice, rather than in this verminous and viperous place.

Next day he had an opportunity of contrasting the discomfort of the
caravansary with a bivouac under a rainy sky; for at nightfall,
within two days' journey of Laghouat, the caravan halted in a
desolate valley, shut in between two lines of reddish hills
seemingly as barren as the valley itself. After long searching in
the ravines a little brushwood was collected, and an attempt was made
to light a fire, which was unsuccessful. The only food they had that
night was a few dates and biscuits, and these were eaten under their
blankets in the rain, Owen having discovered that it was wetter in
his tent than without. This discomfort was the most serious he had
experienced, yet he felt it hardly at all, thinking that perhaps it
would have been very little use coming to the desert in a railway
train or in a mail coach. Only by such adventures is travel made
rememberable, and, looking out of his blankets, he was rewarded by a
sight which he felt would not be easily forgotten--the camels on
their knees about the drivers, who were feeding them from their
hands, the poor beasts leaning out their long necks to take what was
given to them--a wretched repast, yet their grunts were full of
satisfaction.

In the morning, however, they were irritable, and bleated angrily
when asked to kneel down so that their packs might be put upon them;
but in the end they submitted, and Owen noticed a certain strain of
cheerfulness in their demeanour all that day. Perhaps they scented
their destination. Owen's horse certainly scented a stable within a
day's journey of Laghouat, for he pricked up his ears, and there was
nothing else but the instinct of a stable that could have induced
him to do so, for on their left was a sinister mountain--sinister
always, Owen thought, even in the sunlight, but more sinister than
ever in the rainy season, wrapped in a cloud, showing here and there
a peak when the clouds lifted. And no mountain seemed harder to
leave behind than this one. Owen, who knew that Laghouat was not
many miles dista