XIV
For full two hours it had been daylight, and Jean’s sleep continued.
He was dreaming of his childhood and of the woods of the Cevennes. It was dark in these woods, dark with the mysterious obscurity of dreamland; his visions were clouded like far-off memories. He saw himself there, a child, with his mother in the shade of immemorial oaks: in a spot carpeted with moss and slender grasses he was plucking bluebells and heather.
And when he awoke, he cast a bewildered glance around him.
The sands were glittering under a torrid sun. Black women, adorned with necklets and amulets, were traversing the burning ground, singing weird melodies. Great vultures glided backwards and forwards silently through the still air; the grasshopper chirped noisily....