uilding; the flies plagued
him unendurably, and presently he found the flies had odious
auxiliaries in the carpet, and after explaining his torture to the
dragoman, who was not suffering at all, he left the building and
walked in the street.

Half an hour after the Kaid came forward to meet him with a little
black sheep in his arms, struggling, frightened at finding itself
captured, bleating painfully. The wool was separated, and Owen was
invited to feel this living flesh, which in a few hours he would be
eating; it would have been impolite to the Kaid to refuse to feel
the sheep's ribs, so Owen complied, though he knew that doing so
would prevent him from enjoying his dinner, and he was very hungry
at the time. The sheep's eyes haunted him all through the meal, and
his pleasure was still further discounted by the news that though
the eagles were at Ain Mahdy, the owner having left them--

"Having left them," Owen repeated. "Good God! I was told he was
here."

"He left here three days ago."

Owen cursed his friend in Laghouat. If he had only told him in the
beginning of the week! The dragoman answered:

"_Sidna, vous vous en souvenez_"

"Speak to me in Arabic, damn you! There is nothing to do here but to
learn Arabic."

"Quite true, _Sidna_, we shall not be able to start to-morrow; the
rains are beginning again."

"Was there ever such luck as mine, to come to the desert, where it
never rains, and to find nothing but rain?"--rain which Owen had
never seen equalled except once in Connemara, where he had gone to
fish, and it annoyed him to hear that these torrential rains only
happened once every three or four years in the Sahara. He was too
annoyed to answer his dragoman.... _Enfin_, Tahar had left his
eagles at Ain Mahdy, and Owen fed them morning and evening, gorging
them with food, not knowing that one of the great difficulties is to
procure in the trained eagle sufficient hunger to induce him to
pursue the quarry. It was an accident that some friend of Tahar's
surprised Owen feeding the eagles and warned him.

"These eagles will not be able to hunt for weeks now."

Owen cursed himself and the universe, Allah and the God of Israel,
Christ and the prophets.

"But, _Sidna_, their hunger can be excited by a drug, and this drug
is Tahar's secret."

"Then to-morrow we start, though there be sand storms or rain storms,
whatever the weather may be."

The dragoman condoned Owen's mistake in feeding the eagle