all the passersby, and the ridges, “all bare of grazing, for by God that country was barren. And we marched: and after we had marched the time of a smoked cigarette, we heard something, and Auda stopped and said, ‘Lads, I hear something.’ And Mohammed stopped and said, ‘Lads, I hear something.’ And Zaal, ‘By God, you are right.’ And we stopped to listen, and there was nothing, and the poor man said, ‘By God, I hear nothing.’ And Zaal said, ‘By God, I hear nothing.’ And Mohammed said, ‘By God, I hear nothing.’ And Auda said, ‘By God, you are right.’ ”
“And we marched and we marched, and the land was barren, and we heard nothing. And on our right hand came a man, a Negro, on a donkey. The donkey was grey, with black ears, and one black foot, and on its shoulder was a brand like this” (a scrabble in the air), “and its tail moved and its legs: Auda saw it, and said, ‘By God, a donkey.’ And Mohammed said, ‘By the very God, a donkey and a slave.’ And we marched. And there was a ridge, not a great ridge, but a ridge as great as from the here to the what-do-you-call-it ( lil biliyeh el hok ) that is yonder: and we marched to the ridge and it was barren. That land is barren: barren: barren.”
“And we marched: and beyond the what-do-you-call-it there was a what-there-is as far as hereby from thence, and thereafter a ridge: and we came to that ridge, and went up that ridge: it was barren, all that land was barren: and as we came up that ridge, and were by the head of that ridge, and came to the end of the head of that ridge, by God, by my God, by very God, the sun rose upon us.”
It ended the session. Everyone had heard that sunrise twenty times, in its immense bathos; an agony piled up of linked phrases, repeated and repeated with breathless excitement by Auda to carry over for hours the thrill of a raiding story in which nothing happened; and the trivial rest of it was exaggerated the degree which made it like one of Auda’s tales; and yet, also, the history of the walk to market at Wejh which many of us had taken. The tribe was in waves of laughter on the ground.