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.
Ali whispered, "Have patience, brother."
Slowly and thoroughly, beginning at one end and letting his eyes move alertly to the other, Ali inspected the camp and confirmed an ugly truth that had already been pointed out by common sense. With eight good men at his back, and the element of surprise in their favor, he would have a reasonable chance of storming the camp. But, as things were—
He'd help neither the dalul nor himself by joining his ancestors at this moment, Ali decided. He pulled the burnous over his head, drew the dagger from its sheath and settled down to wait.
The light grew, and the heat with it, as the sun climbed higher. Ali risked moving just enough to pick up a pebble and put it on his tongue. He had no water, and if the wait proved a long one, the pebble would help relieve thirst. He must not move again, though. The merest flicker could be one too many, and certainly a Druse tribesman with even a baggage camel could run down a man who hadn't any.
A camel rider, coming into camp from the south, roused not the least interest among the men already there, and Ali took mental note of the incident. Doubtless these raiders were flanking the great Hadj, but surely they could not be insane enough to attack it. Probably they intended to waylay small groups coming from various sources to join the Hadj, just as they had the camp of Sofad. The very fact that the camel rider came almost unnoticed proved that the raiders had a sentry posted to the south, and the sentry had somehow advised his companions of the rider's approach. Apparently, they anticipated no interference from any other point of the compass.
Sudden hope rose in Ali's heart. The rider might be bringing news of another caravan to be attacked, and, if so, he and his companions would depart very shortly. Since they did not know how to control it anyhow, they would not take the dalul with them. Ali's eyes strayed back to the tethered animal.
It must have come from the very choicest of the riding camels of some mighty official. Even the Pasha of Damascus would not have many such, for the simple reason that there weren't many. More than ever, it represented all the perfection dreamed of by some camel breeder—some long-dead camel breeder, since the dalul had never been produced in one generation or during the life span of one man—who knew the desert and yearned for the ideal camel.
Watching the dalul, Ali found his own mounting thirst easier to bear. The animal had been without water longer than he and probably was desperate for a drink—but refused to show it. Ali had learned while still apprenticed to the rug vendor that camels may be as thirsty as any other creatures. He turned his eyes back to the men.
One, in a rather desultory fashion, was mending a pack saddle. Two or three others were at various small chores and the rest were sleeping in the shade of their own tents. The hardness flowed back into Ali's eyes.