noon
I ran into a house close by and sheltered there until the French column came out , and then went out in some European clothes I found there , and had no more trouble . '' While the Arabs were preparing breakfast , Edgar searched for a spot where the sheik could lie in shelter during the mid-day heat ; for , hot as it was on the desert sands , the heat was fully as great on the bare rocks of the hills . After some search he found a spot where two ledges of rock ran parallel to each other , with a passage of some six feet between them , on each side of which they rose perpendicularly some twelve feet in height . The fissures ran nearly north and south , and therefore , except for an hour at noon , the bottom was entirely in shade . It was within half a mile of the spot where they encamped for the night ; and returning , the sheik was carried there at once , and was laid on the blanket . The spears were found to be long enough to reach across at the top . The blanket that had formed the hammock being unrolled , it formed a sort of awning that could , when the sun was high , be moved a little one way or the other , so as to keep him in the shade .