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up before him. The goatherd disappeared, along with the bag and the herd of goats, swallowed up by the darkness where his mind had once been. He trembled and his stomach gurgled into life again as he felt something hard pressing against the small of his back and, despite himself, turned round. The dog was poking him with its nose. Between its teeth it was carrying the piece of string from one end of the sausage. The boy took a deep breath, knelt down on the ground and returned to his task.
    The bag was made of thick leather. It smelled of dried onions and sweat. He hooked two fingers round the strap and gave a gentle tug. When he felt the weight of the bag, he threw all caution to the wind. His mind filled up with images of food, and everything around him was replaced by what he imagined to be the contents of that bag. He managed to drag his booty a few inches more in almost absolute silence until one particularly greedy tug sent the stiff body of the bag – as if it were a drum skin – thudding over the pebbles.
    â€˜Where do you think you’re going with that?’
    He froze at the sound of the gruff voice coming from the other side of the fire, which lit up the grimace of fear that was now his face, the face of a silent-film actor or a child caught red-handed for the first time.
    â€˜I’m hungry, sir.’
    â€˜Didn’t anyone teach you to ask nicely?’
    At that moment, he would have liked simply to run away with the bag and leave the man there, talking from underneath his blanket. He wondered if perhaps the dog was not as friendly as it had seemed. He knew nothing as yet of loyalties or of the time that passes between man and beast, knitting them together ever more tightly.
    â€˜Help me up, boy.’
    The boy dropped the leather strap and approached hesitantly. A couple of yards away, he stopped and studied the man’s body. His face was still covered by the blanket, but his legs were now visible from the knees down. The man stirred feebly beneath his blanket, perhaps trying to fasten his trousers or feeling for his lighter in order to light his first cigarette of the day, and by the time his head appeared, the boy was once more hidden behind the prickly pears. In the time he remained there, the very faintest glimmer of light began to illumine a few corners of the encampment. He saw that he had been right in thinking that the trees were poplars and could see the effects of the drought on their topmost leaves. He counted nine nanny goats and one billy goat. He also noticed a construction he hadn’t seen before: a kind of pyramid-shaped shack made out of branches cut from the nearby trees. From its walls hung straps, ropes, chains, a metal milk churn and a blackened frying pan. It was more like a tabernacle than a shelter. Separating the hut from the poplar trees was a woven fence held up by four posts hammered into the ground.
    The goatherd had by then sat up and rolled himself a cigarette. It took him several minutes to get to his feet because the blanket had become tangled around his legs and elbows. Although the boy could still not really make out the man’s features, he assumed from the way he moved that he was old. A scrawny old man who slept in his clothes. A dark jacket with wide lapels, a dishevelled mop of grey hair and what looked like a white brush stroke that covered his face from his nose downwards.
    The goatherd saw the boy reappear from behind the prickly pear, but barely noticed him because he was too busy blowing on the wick of his rope lighter. When the boy was about six feet away from the man, he stopped. From that distance, he could see the goatherd’s hair full of straw, and the holes in the elbows of his jacket. He was sitting on the ground with the blanket covering his legs, and the boy was surprised that he could sit comfortably like that, his back bent. The old man glanced up and sat staring at the boy. He had placed his cigarette behind one ear and