Book 3 Chapter 2

He paused, pulling up his horse and turning in his saddle to survey the yellow and brown waste over which they had come.

"I suppose, as an Englishman whose forbears have always clung to the soil, I find more pleasure in beholding an English landscape," he said, with a smile which was half apologetic. "The ideal of making two blades of grass spring where there was but one before may not be a very exalted one, but I confess I see more beauty in a field of grain waving under the August sun, than in these acres of yellow sand, and the thought of a perpetual summer, with never the soft grey tones of an autumn sky or the crisp frostiness of a winter's morning--well, it doesn't appeal to my John Bull soul!"

He laughed, ashamed of his vehemence, and the horses sprang gaily forward, glad to be moving again after even so brief a halt.

All through the morning they rode, resting for an hour or two at noon; and in the late afternoon they remounted their horses and fared forth once more in search of the camping-place Sir Richard had in mind.

By dint of compasses and an unusually accurate sense of location, the older man had staked their course with admirable directness, and as the moon rose they drew rein at the appointed destination, a wild and rocky valley whose caves offered a natural protection from the chill night breeze which blew with disconcerting freshness over the loose, salt-impregnated sand.