CHAPTER XV
THE DESERT AWAKES
The march Royson had undertaken was a trying one. The desert runs to
extremes, and, at that season, the thermometer varied a hundred degrees
between noon and midnight. When the sun dipped behind the hills, a
tense darkness fell on the land. This impenetrable pall is peculiar to
Egypt; probably it suggested to Moses that ninth plague wherewith he
afflicted the subjects of a stubborn Pharaoh. Though this "darkness
that may be felt" yields, as a rule, to the brilliancy of the stars
after half an hour's duration, while it lasts a lighted match cannot be
seen beyond a distance of ten or twelve feet. It is due, in all
likelihood, to the rapid radiation of surface heat. When the cold air
has robbed sand and rock of the temperature acquired from the broiling
sun, the atmosphere clears, and the desert reveals itself again in the
gloomy monotone of night.
It may reasonably be supposed, that the excess of humidity which caused
the remarkable mirage of the afternoon helped to continue the "black
hour," as the Arabs term it, far beyond its ordinary limits.
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