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Laghouat, built among rocks, some of which were white, showed up high above the plain; and, notwithstanding his desire for food and shelter, he sat on his horse at gaze, interested in the ramparts of this black town, defended by towers, outlined upon a grey sky. "When a woman has seen the guest she no longer cares for the master."
Owen's horse certainly scented a stable within a day's journey of Laghouat, for he pricked up his ears, and there was nothing else but the instinct of a stable that could have induced him to do so, for on their left was a sinister mountain sinister always, Owen thought, even in the sunlight, but more sinister than ever in the rainy season, wrapped in a cloud, showing here and there a peak when the clouds lifted.
He would be found in an oasis not more than two days' journey from Laghouat, so the hunter said, but the dragoman's opinion was that the old hunter was not very sure; Tahar would be found there, and if he were not there he was for certain in another oasis three or four days still farther south. "But I cannot travel all over the Sahara in search of eagles."
"'Nothing simpler, my dear fellow, answered De Malet, laughing. 'The strips were all exactly the same length, and the thief, fearing to get the longest piece, betrayed himself by biting off the end. "This, as you may think, added a good deal to the colonel's reputation; and when we had that affair with the Bedouins at Laghouat we soon saw that he could fight as well as manoeuvre.
The dragoman pointed out to him the terrible weather they had experienced, and how glad he had been to find shelter in Laghouat. "Oui, Sidna, vous êtes maintenant au comble de regrets, mats pour rien au monde vous n'auriez fait ces étapes vers le sud."
The one addressed by Owen delighted him by answering without hesitation: "From Laghouat." The hard, guttural sound he gave to the syllables threw the word into wonderful picturesqueness, enchanting Owen.
Next day he had an opportunity of contrasting the discomfort of the caravansary with a bivouac under a rainy sky; for at nightfall, within two days' journey of Laghouat, the caravan halted in a desolate valley, shut in between two lines of reddish hills seemingly as barren as the valley itself.
Laghouat was Owen's destination; from thence he could proceed farther into the desert and wander among the different archipelagoes until the summer drove him northward. The sale of the camels if not their sale, their hire for so many months was the subject of a long dispute in which Owen was advised not to interfere.
Two hours after sunset the helm was put up and the "Albatross" bore off to the southeast; and on the morrow, after clearing the Tell Mountains, she saw the rising of the morning star over the sands of the Sahara. On the 30th of July there was seen from the aeronef the little village of Geryville, founded like Laghouat on the frontier of the desert to facilitate the future conquest of Kabylia.
And no mountain seemed harder to leave behind than this one. Owen, who knew that Laghouat was not many miles distant, rode on in front, impatient to see the oasis rise out of the desert.
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