milk-white mists which rose from the sea, and it was cold.

Kasius, a mountain of moderate elevation, stands on a tongue of land that
projects from the coast between the south of Palestine and Egypt. It is
washed on the north by the sea which, on this day, is not gleaming, as is
its wont, in translucent ultramarine; its more distant depths slowly
surge in blue-black waves, while those nearer to shore are of quite a
different hue, and meet their sisters that lie nearer to the horizon in a
dull greenish-grey, as dusty plains join darker lava beds. The
northeasterly wind, which had risen as the sun rose, now blew more
keenly, wreaths of white foam rode on the crests of the waves, though
these did not beat wildly and stormily on the mountain-foot, but rolled
heavily to the shore in humped ridges, endlessly long, as if they were of
molten lead. Still the clear bright spray splashed up when the gulls
dipped their pinions in the water as they floated above it, hither and
thither, restless and uttering shrill little cries, as though driven by
terror.

Three men were walking slowly along the causeway which led from the top
of the hill down into the valley, but it was only the eldest, who walked
in front of the other two, who gave any heed to the sky, the sea, the
gulls, and the barren plain that lay silent at his feet. He stopped, and
as soon as he did so, the others followed his example. The landscape
below him seemed to rivet his gaze, and it justified the disapproval with
which he gently shook his head, which was somewhat sunk into his beard.
A narrow strip of desert stretched westward before him as far as the eye
could reach, dividing two levels of water. Along this natural dyke a
caravan was passing, and the elastic feet of the camels fell noiselessly
on the road they trod. The leader, wrapped in his white mantle, seemed
asleep, and the camel-drivers to be dreaming; the dull-colored eagles