Yet he could not hide, for the path ran close under the castle,
and on the wall strode the sentry. The plain was open; there was no
way by which he could creep past.
At last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. At that very
moment a dense mist came down; he walked along, lost the track, and
found it again. Then there came a challenge from the sentry. He could
not see the sentry or the sentry him. So he called back in Arabic that
he was a friend, and so passed on in the mist. At last he was out on
the open ground beyond both the castle and the little town by it.
Five minutes later the mist blew away; the sun shone; the castle was
passed, and the open plains lay before him. The mist had saved him.
In an hour he came to a large town named Orman on the edge of the
desert sandy plains; and here he stayed for some weeks. His horses
were sent back to Jerusalem. Instead of towns and villages of huts,
he would now find only the tents of wandering Arabs who had to keep
moving to find bits of sparse growth for their few sheep and camels.
While he was at Orman he managed to make friends with many of the
Arabs and with their Chief. He asked the Chief to help him on toward
Kaf--an oasis town across the desert.
"Don't go," the Chief and his people said, "the Arabs there are bad:
when we go we never let our rifles out of our hands.
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