noon
It is but a sand-storm we have to fear . '' `` Yet I feel in the roots of my hair and behind my eyes that the rain is coming . '' Maïeddine shrugged his shoulders , for an Arab does not twice contradict a woman , unless she be his wife . But the lilac haze became a pall of crape , and the noon meal was hurried . Maïeddine saved some of the surprises he had brought for a more favourable time . Hardly had they started on again , when rain began to fall , spreading over the desert in a quivering silver net whose threads broke and were constantly mended again . Then the rough road -LRB- to which the little caravan did not keep -RRB- and all the many diverging tracks became wide silver ribbons , lacing the plain broken with green dayas .