The camels were rushed together
in a group: the men of Ithera fired on the robbers and went after
them. After a short, sharp battle the robbers made off and the men
settled down where they were for the night, during which they had to
beat off another attack by the robbers.
Forder said, "What brave fellows you are!" This praise pleased them
immensely, and they began to be friendly with him, and forgot that
they had meant to leave his dead body in the desert, though they still
told him he would be killed at the Jowf. For three days they travelled
on without finding any water, and even on the fourth day they only
found it by digging up the sand with their fingers till they had made
a hole over six feet deep where they found some.
_In the Heart of the Desert_
At last Forder saw the great mass of the old castle, "no one knows
how old," that guards the Jowf[71] that great isolated city with its
thousands of lovely green date palms in the heart of the tremendous
ocean of desert.
Men, women and children came pouring out to meet their friends: for a
desert city is like a port to which the wilderness is the ocean, and
the caravan of camels is the ship, and the friends go down as men do
to the harbour to meet friends from across the sea.
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