Hi Jolly!
Copyright© 2026 by Jim Kjelgaard
Chapter 6: The Strange Ship
The first light of day was followed almost at once by the first blast of heat. Then the sun rose, a burning red ball that seemed to roll across the eastern horizon with steadily increasing speed, as though to gain momentum for leaping into the sky.
The rein hung slack and Ali dozed in the saddle as Ben Akbar paced steadily onward. When the bright sun flashed in his eyes, Ali awakened and halted his mount with, “Ho, my brother! Let us stop.”
Ben Akbar halted, knelt when commanded to do so, and Ali dismounted.
As the sun climbed higher and grew hotter, Ali pondered his present situation, the immediate past and the probable future. In his mind’s eye, he drew a map of the general area and of his approximate position.
At a rough estimate, Mecca was halfway down the east shore of the Red Sea, a great sweep of water whose most northerly waves break on the Sinai Peninsula and whose southern extremity mingles with the Gulf of Aden, a thousand or more miles away. Directly to the east was the land of the Arabs. Ali’s native Syria was northeast, and beyond Syria lay Turkey.
Since it was manifestly impossible to cross the Red Sea without a suitable ship, Ali’s choice of directions were north, south and east. It was a difficult choice, for, wherever he went, he would still be in a land of Moslems. Even if he might somehow contrive to cross the Red Sea, he must necessarily disembark in Moslem Egypt.
Because he had shed blood in Holy Mecca, he was and forever must be outcast by all true Moslems. Moreover, with thousands of home-going pilgrims and each one an indignant bearer of the tale of desecration, very shortly Ali would be a marked man throughout the Moslem world. Any Moslem who killed him would be honored, not prosecuted.
Now all that belonged to the dead past. This was the living present, and Ali wondered curiously why he was unable to regard that present in the grave light cast by facts as they were. He’d gained in Mecca the coveted right to call himself Hadji Ali, and, considering the turn of circumstances that now meant nothing whatever. It made not the slightest difference what name he carried. But, far from surrendering to despair or even giving way to anxiety, Ali felt that the Hadj had brought him a whole new future and that it had never been so hopeful.
He stroked the dalul’s neck with affectionately understanding hands. Ben Akbar made happy little noises with his mouth and the rein trailed in the desert sand. Ali stooped to pick it up. The rein was not necessary because he could still guide Ben Akbar by voiced commands, but, since he was setting out on what would most certainly be a long journey, he had felt that it was desirable to have proper trappings for his mount.
As soon as Ali began to plan ahead after his flight from Mecca, he decided that he must reach the camp of Al Misri, the most accessible source of camel harness, before the soldiers were able to bring their news there. He accomplished that by making Ben Akbar kneel when both had run a safe distance, then mounting and riding at full speed until he was within a discreet distance of the camp. There—even if he has completed the Hadj, a camel’s groom must not be caught riding a dalul reserved exclusively for the Pasha of Damascus—Ali dismounted and walked the rest of the way.
Familiar figures about the camp, the pair attracted only indifferent glances from the sentries. As though he were acting under orders, Ali went directly to the supply tent to choose a proper saddle and bridle. The bridle presented no problem, but Ali was able to find a saddle only after rejecting a dozen of the biggest ones and finally hitting upon the largest of all. In superb condition, Ben Akbar’s sleek hump seemed ready to burst. None but the biggest saddle would fit.
However, foreseeing probable hardship, and the consequent shrinking of the dalul’s hump, Ali gathered up a sufficient supply of saddle pads. Finally, he chose a goatskin water bag and, as payment for all, left the single coin that had remained to him after paying for his ihram. It was not enough, and he knew it, but it was all he had.
Leading Ben Akbar, Ali filled his water bag at the oasis and went on. The sentries who watched all this but failed to act were lulled partly by the fact that Ali was a familiar part of the camp and, as far as the sentries knew, above suspicion. They were further disarmed by the very audacity of the scheme. Nobody, certainly not a camel’s groom, would walk brazenly into a camp commanded by Al Misri and steal trappings to equip the Pasha’s prized dalul, which he also intended to steal!
A safe distance from camp, Ali mounted and rode. He struck inland, veering away from the route that would be selected by most of the home-going pilgrims, letting Ben Akbar choose his own moderate pace all night long. Nobody could follow him in the darkness, anyhow, and it was wise to spare his mount.
Now, as he stood beside the reclining dalul and the burning sun pursued its torrid course, Ali considered that which was as inevitable as the eventual setting of the sun.
It was a foregone conclusion that some tracker had taken the trail as soon as he was able to see it, and the pursuers would waste no time. Nor would they ever give up. Who stole a dalul from the Pasha of Damascus might escape only if he sought and found asylum with one of the Pasha’s powerful enemies. But who desecrated Holy Mecca would never find safety in any Moslem land. In addition, Ali thought, the officer and all the men who’d been with him would now make a heretic’s punishment a point of honor, a blood quest from which only death would free them.
Ali still saw hope that could not have been without Ben Akbar. As individuals, either was assailable. Together, they were invincible.
Counting from the time they’d left Al Misri’s camp to the first light of day, Ali gave meticulous consideration to the pace set by Ben Akbar and the type of terrain they’d traveled. When finished, he knew within a few rods either way just how far they had come and within a few minutes, plus or minus, when pursuers could be expected. Ali turned to Ben Akbar.
“Rest,” he crooned, as he removed saddle and bridle. “Rest and forage, oh Prince among dalul. Come to me then, and you shall teach the Pasha’s soldiers the true speed of a dalul.”
Ben Akbar wandered forth to crop the coarse desert vegetation. Choosing the doubtful shade offered by a copse of scrub, Ali lay down and drew his burnous about him. He slept peacefully and soundly, as though he’d somehow managed to purge his mind of certain grim prospects for the immediate future and rest alone mattered. A bit more than three hours later, as Ali had planned when he chose his bed, the blazing sun shone directly upon him and its glare broke his slumber.
He did not, as had been his habit, lie quietly and without moving until he determined exactly what lay about him and what, if anything, he should do about it. Ben Akbar, who always knew long before his master when anything approached—and always let Ali know—made such precautions unnecessary. The great dalul was grazing quietly and only a few feet away.
“To me, my brother,” Ali called softly.
Ben Akbar came at once and Ali replaced the saddle and bridle. About to take a swallow of water, he decided to wait until Ben Akbar could also have a satisfactory drink or until thirst became unbearable. In the latter event, they’d share the contents of the water bag.
Ali thought calmly of the journey before him. A novice attempting such a trip would invite his own death, and even an experienced desert traveler would find such an undertaking very precarious. However, Ali, who’d spent most of his life on the caravan routes, thought of it as just one more journey.
The merciless sun spared nothing. Waves of heat rolled along with monotonous regularity, as though the heat blanket were a mighty ocean beset by a steady wind. Ali turned his back to the sun’s direct rays and watched Ben Akbar. He was hot and thirsty, and becoming hotter and thirstier, but so had he been before and would be again.
The sun was almost exactly where Ali had decided it should be when Ben Akbar raised his head and fixed his attention on the western horizon. It was the direction from which they had come, that from which pursuit should come. Ali turned to face the same way as Ben Akbar.
A few minutes later, they rode over a hillock and Ali saw them. They were a little group of the Pasha’s crack troops, superbly mounted on magnificent dalul and maintaining tight formation behind a tracker. Ali reached up to fondle Ben Akbar’s neck but kept his eyes on the riders. They were seven, including the tracker, and Ali knew at once why there were no more than seven and no fewer.
He was no ordinary outlaw, but a direct affront to all that Moslems held most dear. He must be brought to justice, and no effort would be spared to do so. Thus the tracker was the best to be found. The six soldiers were picked men. Finally, the seven dalul were the very elite of the almost thirty thousand camels with the Hadj. There were no more than seven pursuers because there was not another dalul to keep pace with these seven.