Miss Pierce flushed a little at the word sex and adroitly changed the subject.
"One can't help wishing that there were a little shade," she murmured. "But I do think all this emptiness is so wonderful, don't you?"
Sarah nodded.
Yes, she thought, the emptiness was marvelous... Healing... Peaceful...
No human beings to agitate one with their tiresome inter-relationships... No burning personal problems!
Now, at last, she felt, she was free of the Boyntons. Free of that strange compelling wish to interfere in the lives of people whose orbit did not remotely touch her own.
She felt soothed and at peace.
Here was loneliness, emptiness, spaciousness... In fact, peace... Only, of course, one wasn't alone to enjoy it.
Lady Westholme and Dr. Gerard had finished with drugs and were now arguing about guileless young women who were exported in a sinister manner to Argentinean cabarets.
Dr. Gerard had displayed throughout the conversation a levity which Lady Westholme, who, being a true politician, had no sense of humor, found definitely deplorable.
"We go on now, yes?" announced the tar-bushed dragoman and began to talk about the iniquities of Jews again.
It was about an hour off sunset when they reached Ma'an at last.
Strange wild-faced men crowded around the car.
After a short halt they went on.
Looking over the flat desert country Sarah was at a loss as to where the rocky stronghold of Petra could be. Surely they could see for miles and miles all around them?
There were no mountains, no hills anywhere.
Were they then still many miles from their journey's end?
They reached the village of Am Musa where the cars were to be left.
Here horses were waiting for them - sorry looking thin beasts.
The inadequacy of her striped wash frock disturbed Miss Pierce greatly.
Lady Westholme was sensibly attired in riding breeches, not perhaps a particularly becoming style to her type of figure, but certainly practical.
The horses were led out of the village along a slippery path with loose stones.
The ground fell away and the horses zigzagged down.
The sun was close on setting.
Sarah was very tired with the long hot journey in the car.
Her senses felt dazed. The ride was like a dream.
It seemed to her afterwards that it was like the pit of Hell opening at one's feet.
The way wound down - down into the ground. The shapes of rock rose up around them, down, down into the bowels of the earth, through a labyrinth of red cliffs. They towered now on either side.
Sarah felt stifled, menaced by the ever-narrowing gorge.
She thought confusedly to herself: "Down into the valley of death - down into the valley of death..." On and on.
It grew dark, the vivid red of the walls faded, and still on, winding in and out, imprisoned, lost in the bowels of the earth.
She thought: "It's fantastic and unbelievable... a dead city."
And again like a refrain came the words:
"The valley of death..."
Lanterns were lit now.
The horses wound along through the narrow ways.
Suddenly they came out into a wide space - the cliffs receded.
Far ahead of them was a cluster of lights.
"That is camp!" said the guide.
The horses quickened their pace a little - not very much - they were too starved and dispirited for that, but they showed just a shade of enthusiasm.
Now the way ran along a gravelly waterbed.
The lights grew nearer.
They could see a cluster of tents, a higher row up against the face of a cliff.
Caves, too, hollowed out in the rock.
They were arriving. Bedouin servants came running out.
Sarah stared up at one of the caves. It held a sitting figure.
What was it?
An idol? A gigantic squatting image?
No, that was the flickering lights that made it loom so large.
But it must be an idol of some kind, sitting there immovable, brooding over the place...