The tents ofAfial
The lieutenant was for going on. But this could not be,
and on my protest he galloped back with an air of voluntary
gallantry, and we heard his voice and that of Shah Riza shout-
ing in the woods.
Husein, however, had vanished, and only recovered us in
the morning. After a time the lieutenant returned: there was
nothing for it but to go on and hope that Husein might find
the way by himself. The night was so dark that we could
hardly see even the shapes of the hills against the sky. We
knew vaguely that we descended: a dampness of cultivated
earth presently came to our nostrils pleasantly, and soon there
was running water, a sweet sound in the night. Scattered at
wide intervals in a great open basin filled with streams, the
Aftab fires flickered here and there. We stumbled down to
the first of them, and found that it belonged to travellers like
ourselves, a caravan camping in the open, without a handful
of food of any kind for horses.
The next tent was very small and poor: our party could
not have entered it: two people crouching inside pointed us
farther on into the hollow. We waded in water. My
horse, thoroughly nervous with the sound of streams flowing
on all sides, refused to cross a leat which we now came upon,
running along the slope. Shah Riza implored me to dismount:
he leaped off his own mare and fluttered before me like a
hen, or the ghost of one in the dimness, agitating my animal
and asking whether, by the Hand of God, my life was not
under his care. I dug in the corners of my enormous stirrups
and got across finally, leaping down the unseen darkness of
the farther bank with a heave which nearly gave a heart attack
to the Philosopher. I was never able to make him, under-
stand that it was my physical and not my spiritual needs which
he was there to attend to.
After the agitation of this crossing we came to what looked