The next day the three travellers reached the edge of the desert, and refreshed themselves for a week in an adjacent village, which, with its shady trees and green pastures, seemed like a little paradise in contrast to the joyless Sahara.

Fadrique's condition especially made this rest necessary.

He had never left the desert during the whole time, gaining his subsistence by fighting with wandering Arabs, and often almost exhausted by the utter want of all food and drink.

At length he had become so thoroughly confused that the stars could no longer guide him, and he had been driven about, sadly and objectless, like the dust clouds of the desert.
Even now, at times, when he would fall asleep after the midday meal, and Antonia and Heimbert would watch his slumbers like two smiling angels, he would suddenly start up and gaze round him with a terrified air, and then it was not till he had refreshed himself by looking at the two friendly faces that he would sink back again into quiet repose.

When questioned on the matter, after he was fully awake, he told them that in his wanderings nothing had been more terrible to him than the deluding dreams which had transported him, sometimes to his own home, sometimes to the merry camp of his comrades, and sometimes into Zelinda's presence, and then leaving him doubly helpless and miserable in the horrible solitude as the delusion vanished.