On the side farthest from the sea the walls of the hollow rose so high that in the darkness they looked like a mountainous region.
They had gone down out of the reach of the gale; and although light airs still blew about them, here the lull was so great that it seemed like going out of winter into a softer clime.
When Caius came up with the cart he found that the traces had already been unfastened and the pony set loose to graze.
"Is there anything for him to eat ?" asked Caius curiously, glad also to establish some friendly interchange of thought.
"One doesn't travel on these sands," said O'Shea, "with a horse that can't feed itself on the things that grow in the sand.

It's the first necessary quality for a horse in these parts." "What sort of things grow here ?" asked Caius, pawing the ground with his foot.
He could not quite get over the inward impression that the mountainous-looking region of the dune over against them was towered with infernal palaces, so weird was the place.
O'Shea's voice came out of the darkness; his form was hardly to be seen.
"Sit yourself down, Mr.Doctor, and have some bread and cheese--that is, if ye've sufficiently forgotten the poies of the old maids.

The things that grow here are good enough to sit on, and that's all we want of them, not being ponies." The answer was once more an insult in its allusion to the pies (Caius was again hungry), and in its refusal of simple information; but the tone was more cheerful, and O'Shea had relaxed from his extreme brevity.
Caius sat down, and felt almost convivial when he found that a parcel of bread and cheese and a huge bottle of cold tea were to be shared between them.

Either the food was perfect of its kind or his appetite good sauce, for never had anything tasted sweeter than the meal.

They all three squatted in the darkness round the contents of the ample parcel, and if they said little it was because they ate much.
Caius found by the light of a match that his watch told it was the hour of seven; they had been at hard travel for more than four hours, and had come to a bit of the beach which could not be traversed without more light.