"If you can reach it," said Ali.
Robin noticed the slight emphasis on the "if," and the tone which suggested a doubt.
"You think me dying?" said he.
"No, you'll struggle through," replied the Persian; "no one dies at the first touch of fever." But he spoke like one who would soothe a frightened child.
"Were I to die, would you go on to Djauf?" asked Robin, who had no fear of death for himself, but a great fear of Harold's being left in the hands of the Bedouin Arabs.
A few days before, Ali would have uttered an unhesitating lie, but he had difficulty in speaking a falsehood to one so transparently truthful as Robin. "It would be better for us all to turn our faces towards Wyh," he replied.
Robin understood the words as a negative answer to his question. "I do not believe that I shall die!" he exclaimed with animation. "I will pray to God—all is in His hands—if it be His will, I shall yet see my brother on earth. But if the Lord calls me home, if I do not behold Harold—till we meet in heaven, oh! Say that you will not forget my last—my dying entreaty; that you should seek out my brother—and set him free!"
Ali could not resist the appeal, he could not turn away from that imploring look; he remembered that he owed his life to the youth who had suffered in consequence of rescuing him.
"What are your Highness's commands?" asked the Persian attendant.
"That we take the northern route," was the reply.