The first gray light of very early morning was just starting to thin
the black night when Ali opened his eyes. He came fully awake, with no
lingering period that was part sleep and part wakefulness, but he kept
exactly the same position he had maintained while slumbering. Until he
knew just what lay about him, he must not move at all.
Motion, even the faintest stir and even in this dim light, was sure to
attract the eye of whoever might be near. In this Syrian desert, where
only the reckless turned their backs to their own caravan companions,
whoever might be near--or for that matter far--could be an enemy.
When Ali finally moved, it was to extend his right hand, very slowly and
very stealthily, to the jeweled dagger that lay snugly sheathed beneath
the patched and tattered robe that served him as burnous by day, and bed
and bed covering by night. When his fingers curled around the hilt, he
breathed more easily. Next to a camel--of course a _dalul_, or riding
camel--a dagger was the finest and most practical of possessions, as
well as the best of friends.
As for owning a _dalul_, Ali hadn't even hoped to get so much as a
baggage camel for this journey. When it finally became apparent that the
celestial rewards of a trip to Mecca would be augmented by certain
practical advantages if he made his pilgrimage now, he had just enough
silver to pay for the _ihram_, or ceremonial robe that he must don
before setting foot in the Holy City. Even then, it had been necessary
to provide Mustapha, that cheating dog of a tailor, with four silver
coins--and two lead ones--and Mustapha had himself to thank for that!
When Ali came to ask the price, it was five pieces of silver. When he
returned to buy, it was six.
But the _ihram_, as well as the fifth silver coin which Mustapha might
have had if he'd retained a proper respect for a bargain, were now safe
beneath Ali's burnous. The dagger was a rare and beautiful thing. It had
been the property of some swaggering desert chief who, while visiting
Damascus, Ali's native city, had imprudently swaggered into a dark
corner.
Though he frowned upon killing fellow humans for other than the most
urgent reasons, and he disapproved completely of assassins who slew so
they might rob, it never even occurred to Ali that he was obliged to do
anything except disapprove. He knew the usual fate of swaggering desert
chieftains who entered the wrong quarters of Damascus, and, when the
inevitable happened, he did not spring to the rescue. That was not
required by his code of self-preservation. So the assassin snatched his
victim's purse and fled without any intervention. Ali got the dagger.
In the light of the journey he was undertaking, and the manner in which
he was undertaking it, a dagger was infinitely more precious than the
best-filled purse. Mecca was indeed a holy city, but of those who
traveled the routes leading to it, not all confined themselves to holy
thoughts and deeds. Many a pilgrim had had his throat slit for a trifle,
or merely because some bandit felt the urge to practice throat slitting.
A dagger smoothed one's path, and, as he waited now with his hand on the
hilt of his protective weapon, Ali thought wryly that his present path
was in sore need of smoothing.
He'd left Damascus two weeks ago, intending to offer his services, as
camel driver, to the Amir of the nearby village of Sofad. He would then
travel to Mozarib with his employer's caravan. The very fact that there
would be force behind the group automatically meant that there would
also be reasonable safety. Located three days' journey from Damascus,
two from Sofad, Mozarib was the assembly point and starting place for
the great Syrian _Hadj_, or pilgrimage. It went without saying that, if
Ali tended to his camel driving and kept his dagger handy, he would go
all the way to Mecca with the great _Hadj_, which often consisted of
5000 pilgrims and 25,000 camels.
Thus he had planned, but his plans had misfired.
He reached Sofad on the morning scheduled for departure, only to find
that the Amir, at the last moment, had decided to make this first march
toward Mozarib a cool one and had left the previous night. Hoping to
catch up, but not unmindful of the perils that beset the way when he
neared the camp of the Sofad pilgrims, Ali had decided that it would be
prudent to reconnoiter first. It had indeed been prudent.
Peering down at the camp from a nest of boulders on a hillock, Ali was
just in time to see the Amir and his fourteen men beheaded, in a most
efficient fashion, by sword-wielding Druse tribesmen who'd taken the
camp. Afterwards, the raiders had loaded everything except the stripped
bodies of their victims on their own camels and departed.
It was a time for serious thinking, to which Ali had promptly devoted
himself. Unfortunately, he failed also to think broadly, and the only
conclusion he drew consisted of the fact that it was still possible for
him to go on and join the _Hadj_. Camel drivers were always welcome.
Sparing not a single thought to the idea that Druse raiders would
rather kill than do anything else, Ali had almost been caught unawares
by the one who had slipped hopefully back to see if he could find
somebody else to behead. Ali had taken to his heels and, so far, he had
proved that he was fleeter than his pursuer. Tenacious as any bloodhound,
the Druse had stayed on his trail until yesterday morning. Now he was
shaken. Ali knew that he was somewhere south of Damascus and, with any
luck, might yet join the _Hadj_.
Help would not come amiss. Ali drank the last sip from his goatskin
water flask, shifted his dagger just a little, so it would be ready to
his hand should he have need of it, and made ready to address himself to
the one unfailing Source of help.
Though he had no more water, there was an endless supply of sand. Good
Moslems who could read and write had assured him that this statement
appears in the _Koran_: "When ye rise up to prayer, wash your faces and
your hands and your arms to the elbows, and wipe your heads and your
feet to the ankles." Though it was commonly assumed that one would
cleanse himself with water before daring to mention Allah's name,
special provisions applied to special occasions. For those who had no
water, sand was an acceptable substitute.
His ablutions performed, Ali faced toward Mecca, placed an open hand on
either side of his face and intoned, "God is most great." Remaining in
a standing position, he proceeded to the next phase of the prayer that
all good Moslems must offer five times daily.
It was the recitation of the opening _sura_, or verse, of the _Koran_.
Ali, who'd memorized the proper words, had not proceeded beyond, "In the
name of the merciful and compassionate God. Praise belongs to God--"
when he was interrupted by the roar of an enraged camel.
Ali halted abruptly, instantly and completely, forgetting the sacred
rite in which he'd been absorbed and that had five more complete phases,
each with prescribed gestures, before he might conclude it. When he
finally remembered, he was a little troubled; Allah might conceivably
frown upon whoever interrupted prayers to Him. But Ali remembered also
that Allah is indulgent toward those who are at war, in danger, ill, or
for other good reasons are unable to recite the proper prayers in the
proper way at the prescribed times.
Surely a camel in trouble--and, among other things, the beast's roar
told Ali that it was in trouble--was the finest of reasons for ignoring
everything else. Not lightly had the camel been designated as Allah's
greatest gift to mankind. To slight His gift would be to slight Him. His
conscience clear on that point, Ali devoted himself to analyzing the
various things he'd learned about when a camel roared in the distance.
The earliest recollection of Ali, who'd never known father or mother,
was of his career as a rug vendor's apprentice in the bazaar of The
Street Called Straight. His master worked him for as many hours as the
boy could stay awake, beat him often and left him hungry when he was
unable to steal food. But the life was not without compensations.
Though no longer enjoying the flourishing trade it had once known,
Damascus sat squarely astride the main route between the vast reaches of
Mohammedan Turkey and Mecca, the city that every good Moslem must visit
at least once during his lifetime. The Turks came endlessly, and in
numbers, and since it's only sensible to do a little trading, even when
on a holy pilgrimage, when they reached Damascus, they stopped to trade
at The Street Called Straight. But though the pilgrims were interesting,
Ali found the camels that carried both the Turks and their goods
infinitely more so.
He knew them all--plodding baggage beasts, two-humped bactrians, the
hybrid offspring of bactrians and one-humped camels, and all the species
and shades of species in between. But though he liked all camels, he
saved his love for the dromedary, the _heira_, the _hygin_, riding
camel, or, as Ali called them, the _dalul_.
Invariably ridden by proud men and never used for any purpose other
than riding, they were a breed apart. Slighter and far more aristocratic
than the baggage beasts, they could carry a rider one hundred miles
between sunrise and sunset, satisfy themselves with a few handfuls of
dates when the ride ended, and go without water for five days. Their
pedigrees, in many instances longer than those of their riders, dated
back to pre-Biblical history. The owner of a _dalul_ considered such a
possession only slightly less precious than his life.
It was when he became acquainted with the _dalul_ that Ali invented his
own mythical father. This parent was not a nameless vagabond, petty
thief, or fly-by-night adventurer who never even knew he'd sired a son
and wouldn't have cared if he had, but a renowned trainer of _dalul_. It
was he who went to the camel pastures and chose the wild young stallions
that were ready for breaking. Though they would kill any ordinary man
who ventured near, Ali's father gentled them and taught them to accept
the saddle and rein. Ali determined that he himself must go out with the
camels and promptly ran away from his master.
Because he was too young to be of any imaginable use, the few caravan
masters who condescended to look at him usually aimed a blow right after
the look. For two years Ali was one of the numerous boy-vagabonds who
infested the bazaars of Damascus. If such a life did not elevate the
mind it could not help but sharpen the wits.
Then, just after his ninth birthday, Ali got his chance to go out with a
caravan. It was a very small and very poor one, fewer than fifty camels,
and the caravan master decided to take Ali only because he was a boy. As
such, quite apart from the fact that he could safely be browbeaten, it
was reasonable to assume that he had not had time to learn all the
tricks of experienced drivers, the more talented among whom have been
known to get rich, and leave the owners poor, on just one journey.
Apart from their uses and physical functions, which he learned so
precisely that one glance enabled him to cite any camel's past history,
age, present state of health, and what it would probably do next, Ali
came to appreciate the true miracle of a camel. He was the one in ten
thousand, the camel driver who knew everything the rest did--and much
they did not--and who transcended that to understand clearly the nature
of the camel itself. So fine was his touch and so complete the affinity
between camels and himself, that even beasts thought hopelessly
unmanageable responded to him.
Nine years old when he made his first trip, Ali had spent the past nine
years on the caravan routes. He'd been to Baghdad, Istanbul, Tosya,
Trebizond. He went where the camels went and never cared if it was two
hundred miles or two thousand. But though every member of a caravan is
entitled to trade for himself, and many a camel driver has become a
caravan master or owner, Ali was as poor as on the day he started.
Partly responsible for this was his consuming passion for camels and his
negligible interest in trading. Far more at fault was his origin. The
men of the caravans knew him as Ali, and only Allah could know more
about camels. To the merchants, who saw camels merely as the most
convenient method for transporting goods, he remained the orphan waif of
Damascus. They turned their backs upon one who had neither family nor
prestige, who could point to no achievement other than an outstanding
skill with camels. Now, camels were very convenient, but, as every
merchant in a perfumed drawing room knew, they also smelled!
So Ali had a most compelling reason for deciding to undertake his
pilgrimage at this time. After he'd been to Mecca, like all others who
have completed the difficult and dangerous journey, he'd be entitled to
add the prefix "Hadji" to his name. That alone would never make him the
equal of the wealthy merchants who also had been to Mecca, but it would
surely make him the superior of all who had not. And this was a vast
number, since the life of a merchant is not necessarily conducive to
physical achievement and the journey to Mecca is hard.
Now, in a desert wilderness, while on the way to Mecca, a camel had
cried out to Ali, and he could not have helped responding, even if the
camel had cried while he was at prayer in the _masjid-al-haram_, the
Great Mosque of Mecca.
Its roar had already told Ali many things about the beast, including the
exact direction he must take to find it and approximately how far he
must go before locating it. The sound had had a certain timbre and
quality that hinted of regal things and regal bearing, therefore it was
not a baggage animal. However, neither did it have the awesome blast of
a fully-grown _dalul_. It was not challenging another stallion to
battle, but roaring in rage and defiance at something that it did not
know how to fear.
Ali's hand slipped back to the hilt of his dagger. Unmindful of the hot
little wind that had just arisen, and that would become hotter as the
day grew longer, he started toward the camel. Although he had never been
here before, he had traveled similar country often enough to make a
reasonably accurate guess as to the terrain that lay ahead.
It was a land of low hills, or hillocks, whose sides and narrow crests
supported a straggling growth of Aleppo pine intermixed with scrubby
brush. There was more than average rainfall, so the trees were bigger
and not as parched as those found in very arid regions. The camel was in
a gulley between the second and third hills. Ali climbed the hill, slunk
behind an Aleppo pine, peered around the trunk and gasped.
There was a camp in the gulley--and a string of baggage camels and
men--but at first glance Ali saw nothing except the _dalul_. Of a deep
fawn color, which stamped it as one of the Nomanieh dromedaries, it was
still so young that it had not yet attained full growth. Located apart
from the rest, each separate leg was held by a separate rope, and the
bonds were stretched so tightly that the beast could hardly move. A
fifth rope, that encircled its neck, was equally tight.
Evidently bound in such a fashion for many hours, the young _dalul_ was
weary, thirsty and choking. But, despite its obvious misery, this was
far and away the most magnificent beast Ali had ever beheld. It was the
riding camel he'd often dreamed of when, plodding along some lonely
caravan trail, he'd conjured up mental images of the perfect _dalul_.
Further examination revealed why the young _dalul_ was bound so cruelly.
Ali's lip curled in contempt.
The men--he counted nineteen--were part of the same band of Druse
tribesmen who'd pillaged the camp of Sofad and massacred its people.
Evidently they considered themselves safe here, since they kept no watch
at all and seemed to be unconcerned about anything. The twenty-nine
camels on the picket line were all stolid baggage animals such as even
Druse could handle. The young _dalul_ was something else.
There was no telling just how it had fallen into the hands of the
Druse; a _dalul_ so fine would certainly be carefully guarded.
Regardless of how the raiders had obtained the animal, they could not
handle it. Obviously, it had turned on them and probably hurt
somebody--Ali voiced a fervent hope that the injury was not a light
one--and now the _dalul_ was tightly bound, to insure that it would hurt
nobody else.