After fifteen minutes, and the blade not felt, Ali knew he'd chosen wisely when he gave his very life into Ben Akbar's keeping. He still did not look behind him. Dalul such as the soldiers mounted were not easily outdistanced, but there was a mighty vein of comfort in that very thought. Ben Akbar would never again be pursued by swifter dalul or more skilful riders. If he won this race, he'd win all to come.
An hour and a half afterwards, Ali finally looked around. With less than a two-hundred-yard lead at the beginning of the race, Ben Akbar had doubled that distance between himself and the three swiftest pursuers. The remaining four, in order of their speed, straggled behind the leaders. Ali slowed Ben Akbar so that his pace exceeded by the scantiest margin that of the three leaders.
When a cool wind announced the going of the day and the coming of the night, the nearest of the seven pursuers was a mere dot in the distance.
The bitter autumn wind that snarled in from the Mediterranean had sent a herd of tough, desert-bred goats to the shelter of some boulders and made them stand close together for the warmth one found in another. Riding past on Ben Akbar, Ali gave the shivering herd the barest of glances and turned his gaze to the horizon. He missed nothing, a highly practical talent whose development had been markedly accelerated by necessity.
Behind lay an incredible journey. Eluding the soldiers, Ali rode on into the very heart of the Arabian desert. Always he sought the lonelier places, shepherd's or camel herder's camps and the smallest villages. At first his experiences had conformed strictly to what any solitary traveler might expect. As the news spread and Ali's ill fame became part of the talk at even the most isolated campfires, his fortunes changed accordingly.
He seldom met anything except cold hatred and outright hostility. Normally it was accompanied by dread, not entirely a disadvantage since, whatever else they thought, trembling natives who recognized Ali feared to refuse him food and other necessities. He fought when he could not avoid fighting, but much preferred to run. Ben Akbar had shown his heels to more soldiers, tribesmen and just plain bandits than Ali could remember.
With an almost desperate yearning for anyone at all who'd exchange a friendly word, eventually Ali turned to his native Syria, where he hoped to find a friend. He found a hatred more bitterly intense than anything experienced elsewhere; every Syrian seemed to think that he must bear part of the shame for a countryman who had defiled the Holy City. Now Ali was farther north, in the land of the Turks and riding toward the port of Smyrna.
Rounding a bend that brought him in sight of the Mediterranean, Ali halted Ben Akbar and stared in amazement.
He was on the shoreside wall of a u-shaped rock ledge that extended into the sea and formed a natural harbor. Some distance out, a great sailing ship that flew a foreign flag rode at anchor. Though he could not read it and had no more than a vague notion that it might be read, Ali could make out her name. She was the Supply.