But Kali understood that those two interceded for him, and he began to love them deeply with his afflicted heart.
For two days they rode in a stony ravine lined with high steep rocks. From the stones heaped and scattered in disorder it was easy to perceive that during the rainy season the ravine was filled with water, but at present its bed was entirely dry. On the walls, on both sides, grew small patches of grass, a great many thorns, and here and there even a tree. Gebhr directed his way by this stony gullet because it went continually upwards; so he thought that it would lead him to some eminence from which he could descry smoke during the daytime and Smain's camp-fires at night. In some places the ravine became so narrow that only two horses could go side by side; in other places it widened into small, round valleys, surrounded as if by high stone walls, on which sat big baboons, playing with each other, barking, and displaying their teeth at the caravan.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The sun already lowered towards the west. Gebhr thought of a resting place; he wanted only to reach some small valley in which he could construct a zareba, that is, enclose the caravan and horses with a fence of thorny mimosa and acacias, for protection against attacks of wild animals. Saba rushed ahead, barking at the baboons which at sight of him shook uneasily, and all of a sudden disappeared in the bend of the ravine. Echo repeated loudly his barking.
Suddenly, however, he became silent and after a while he came rushing to the horses with hair bristling on his back and tail curled under him. The Bedouins and Gebhr understood that something must have frightened him, but staring at each other and desiring to ascertain what it could be, they proceeded farther.
But riding around a small bend, the horses shied and stood still in one moment as if thunderstruck by the sight which met their eyes.
On a fair-sized rock situated in the middle of the ravine, which was quite wide at that place, lay a lion.
At most, a hundred paces separated him from them. The powerful beast, seeing the riders and horses, rose on his fore paws and began to gaze at them. The sun, which now stood low, illumined his huge head and shaggy breasts, and in that ruddy luster he was like one of those sphinxes which ornament the entrances to ancient Egyptian temples.