"Fool!" the officer said to Ali contemptuously. "We knew who they were and were ready to take them! I would not care to wear your burnous at this moment!"
The single reason why he was not already lying beside the wounded man, Ali told himself, could be ascribed to the fact that the fierce officer dared not shed blood in Mecca. Certainly his execution would not be delayed when they no longer stood on Holy Ground.
Then the fog that had dulled Ali's brain when he stabbed The Jackal faded away. He thought of words voiced by the officer, 'the camel rider who was made keeper of the _dalul_, and he too has let his charge stray.' Obviously, the soldiers were unaware of Ben Akbar's nearness. Ali saw his one hope of escape.
"Ho!" he called loudly and clearly. "Ben Akbar! Come to me! Run!"
There was a rattling of pebbles as Ben Akbar hastened to obey. Astonished soldiers, who hadn't even suspected this and needed a moment to decide what it might be, dodged out of the _dalul's_ path or were knocked out of it.
Side by side, Ali and Ben Akbar ran on until the friendly mantle of night hid both.
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.
