arkened the sky with a strange lilac haze, which
seemed tangible as thin silk gauze. Behind it the sun glimmered like a
great silver plate, and the desert turned pale, as in moonlight.
Although the ground was hard under the camels' feet, the wind carried
with it from far-away spaces a fine powder of sand which at last forced
Victoria to let down the haoulis, and Maieddine and the two Negroes to
cover their faces with the veils of their turbans, up to the eyes.

"It will rain this afternoon," M'Barka prophesied from between her
curtains.

"No," Maieddine contradicted her. "There has been rain this month, and
thou knowest better than I do that beyond El Aghouat it rains but once
in five years. Else, why do the men of the M'Zab country break their
hearts to dig deep wells? There will be no rain. It is but a sand-storm
we have to fear."

"Yet I feel in the roots of my hair and behind my eyes that the rain is
coming."

Maieddine shrugged his shoulders, for an Arab does not twice contradict
a woman, unless she be his wife. But the lilac haze became a pall of
crape, and the noon meal was hurried. Maieddine saved some of the
surprises he had brought for a more favourable time. Hardly had they
started on again, when rain began to fall, spreading over the desert in
a quivering silver net whose threads broke and were constantly mended
again. Then the rough road (to which the little caravan did not keep)
and all the many diverging tracks became wide silver ribbons, lacing
the plain broken with green dayas. A few minutes more--incredibly few,
it seemed to Victoria--and the dayas were deep lakes, where the water
swirled and bubbled round the trunks of young pistachio trees. A torrent
poured from the mourning sky, and there was a wild sound of marching
water, which Victoria could hear, under the haoulis which sheltered her.
No water came through them, for the arching form of the bassour was like
the roof of a tent, and the rain poured down on either side. She peeped
out, enjoying her own comfort, while pitying Maieddine and the Negroes;
but all three had covered their thin burnouses with immensely thick,
white, hooded cloaks, woven of sheep's wool, and they had no air of
depression. By and by they came to an oued, which should have been a
dry, stony bed without a trickle of water; but half an hour's downpour
had created a river, as if by black magic; and Victoria could guess the
force at which it was rushing, by the stout resistan