Читать книгу Sister Teresa онлайн

66 страница из 85

At eleven o'clock a halt was made in the bed of a great (p. 046) river enclosed within steep mudbanks, now nearly as dry as the river they had crossed in the morning; only a few inches of turbid water, at which a long herd of cattle was drinking when they arrived; the banks planted with great trees, olives, tamarisks, and masticks. At three o'clock they were again in the saddle, and they rode on, leaving to the left an encampment (the dragoman told Owen the name of the tribe), some wandering horses, and some camels. The camels, who appeared to have lost themselves, did not gallop away like the horses, but came forward and peaceably watched the cavalcade passing, absent-minded, bored ruminants, with something always on their minds. The sobriety of these animals astonished him. "They're not greedy, and they are never thirsty. Of what do they remind me?" And Owen thought for a while, till catching sight of their long fleecy necks, bending like the necks of birds, and ending in long flexible lips (it was the lips that gave him the clue he was seeking), he said, "The Nonconformists of the four-footed world," and he told his joke to his dragoman, without, however, being able to make him understand.