the camp, down towards the river, and see if they went that way. I shall take the northern perimeter.'
He broke into a run. Something about the stranger's voice had filled him with a sense of foreboding. I have to find out who that Arab is, he thought.
When he reached the last ruined buildings he saw two of the night watchmen standing together in the shadows cast by the wall. They were leaning on their jezails and talking quietly. He called to them, 'Did two men pass this way?'
They recognized his voice and ran to him. 'No, Highness, no man passed us.' It seemed that they had been awake and alert, so Mansur had to believe them.
'Shall we raise the alarm?' one demanded.
'No,' Mansur said. 'It was nothing. Return to your post.'
The strangers must have gone down towards the river. He ran back through the dark camp and, in the moonlight, saw Istaph running back towards him along the causeway. He sprinted to meet him and called to him while still far off, 'Have you found them?'
'This way, Highness.' Istaph's voice was harsh with exertion. Together they raced down the hillside, then Istaph turned off the path and led Mansur towards a clump of thorn trees.
They have camels,' he gasped.
As he said it two riders burst from the clump of trees. Mansur came up short and stood panting, gazing after them as they rode diagonally across the hillside below him. They passed not more than a pistol shot from where he stood. Their mounts were both beautiful racing camels and carried bulky saddlebags and waterbags for a desert crossing. They were ghostly in the silvery moonlight, moving away in uncanny silence towards the open desert.
In desperation Mansur bellowed after them, 'Stop! In the Caliph's name, I order you to halt!'
Both riders turned swiftly in their high saddles at the sound of his voice. They stared back at him. Mansur recognized them both. He had not seen the man with the European features, whom Istaph had called the /erengi, for some years. However, it was the Arab who commanded his attention. He had thrown the hood of his cloak upon his shoulders and, for a fleeting moment, the slanting rays of the moon struck full into his face. He and Mansur stared at each other for a heartbeat, then the Arab leaned forward over the neck of his camel and, with the long riding stick he carried, urged it into the long, elegant gait that covered the ground at an astonishing speed. His dark cloak billowed behind him
as he whirled away down the valley with his ferengi companion riding hard behind him.
A shock of recognition and disbelief paralysed Mansur's legs. He stood and stared after them Then, black thoughts swirled through his head and seemed to batter his senses like the flapping wings of vultures, until at last he rallied himself. I must get back to my father and warn him of what is afoot, he thought. But he waited while the camels dwindled into the distance, flitting like moths across the moonlit landscape, and then were gone.
Mansur ran all the way. He had to stop in the shadow of the walls to regain his breath. Then he went on swiftly but quietly among the tents so as not to raise the alarm. There were two sentries at the door to the Caliph's, but at a quiet word from Mansur they sheathed their swords and stood aside to let him pass. He went through into the inner chamber of the pavilion. A single oil lamp was burning on a metal tripod that shed a soft light.
'Father!' he called.
Dorian sat up from his sleeping mat. He wore only a light loincloth and his naked body was slim and muscled, like an athlete's, in the lamplight. 'Who is it?' he called.
'It is Mansur.'
'What ails you at this hour?' Dorian had recognized the urgency in his tone.
There were two strangers in our camp this night. They were with Sir Guy.'
'Who were they?'
'I recognized them both. One was Captain Koots from the garrison at Good Hope, the man who pursued Jim across the wilderness.'
'Here in Oman?' Dorian came fully awake. 'It does not seem possible. Are you certain?'
'I am even more certain of the other man. His face is graven upon my mind until the day I die.'
Tell me!' Dorian commanded.
'It was the assassin, Kadem ibn Abubaker, the swine who murdered my mother.'
'Where are they now?' Dorian's voice was harsh.
They fled into the desert before I could confront them.'
'We must follow at once. We cannot let Kadem escape again.' The glazed pink knife-scar on Dorian's chest caught the lamplight as he reached for his robes.
They are mounted on racing camels,' Mansur answered. 'We have
none, and they were headed into the dunes. We can never hope to catch them in the sands.'
'Nevertheless we must try.' Dorian raised his voice and shouted for the guards.
The dawn was a lemon and orange glow in the eastern sky before bin-Shibam had gathered together a punitive party of his desert warriors and they were all mounted and ready to ride. They swept down the causeway from the camp to where Mansur had seen the fugitives disappear. The ground was sun-baked and stony and held no tracks of the camels passing, but they could not afford further time for the skilled huntsmen to search every inch.
With Mansur leading, they followed the direction in which Kadem had headed into the wilderness. Within two hours' ride they saw the dunes rising ahead of them, in flowing and fantastic shapes. The slip faces down which the sand cascaded were blue and purple and amethyst in the early light. The crests were sharp and sinuous as the back of a gigantic iguana.
Here they found the tracks of two camels trodden into deep saucers in the liquid sand where they had climbed the first dune and disappeared over the crest. They tried to follow, but the horses sank over their hocks with each pace and, in the end, even Dorian had to admit that they were defeated.
'Enough, bin-Shibam!' he told the grizzled old warrior. 'We cannot go on. Wait for me here.'
Dorian would not allow even Mansur to accompany him as he rode up the face of the next dune. His tired horse had to lunge upwards with each pace and only reached the crest with great effort. There he dismounted. From the sand valley below Mansur watched his father. He was a tall, lonely figure staring out into the desert with the early morning breeze blowing his robes out behind him. He stood like that for a long time, then sank to his knees in prayer. Mansur knew he was praying for Yasmini, and his own sorrow for the loss of his mother welled up almost to suffocate him.
At last Dorian remounted and came down the dune with his stallion sliding in the soft-running sands on braced haunches and stiff front legs. (tm) said not a word as he passed them, and rode on with his chin sunk n his chest. They fell in behind him and he led them back to kakanderbad.
Dorian dismounted in the horse lines and the grooms took his stallion. He strode to Sir Guy's tent with Mansur close behind him. His intention was to confront his half-brother and disclose his true identity, to throw in his face the ancient memories of his vicious treatment of Tom, Sarah and himself as a child, and to demand from him a full explanation of the nocturnal and clandestine presence of Kadem ibn Abubaker in the camp.
Before he reached the tent he realized that things had changed during their absence. A party of strangers was gathered before the entrance. They all wore seafaring dress and were heavily armed. At their head was Captain William Cornish of the Arcturus. Dorian was so angry that he almost hailed him in English. With an effort he prevented his anger boiling over, but it simmered dangerously close to the surface.
Mansur followed close behind him as he stormed into the tent. Sir Guy and Verity stood in the centre of the room. They were in riding garb, and were deep in conversation. Both of them looked up, startled, at the precipitate entrance of the two grim-faced figures.
'Ask them what they want,' Guy said to his daughter. 'Make them understand that this behaviour is insulting.'
'My father welcomes you. He hopes nothing is seriously amiss.' Verity was pale and seemed distraught.
Dorian made a perfunctory gesture of greeting, then glanced around the tent. The handmaidens were packing the last of Sir Guy's possessions.
'You are leaving?'
'My father has received tidings of the gravest import. He must return to the Arcturus and sail at once. He asks me to present his most sincere apologies. He tried to inform you of this change in his plans, but he was informed that you and your son had left Isakanderbad.'
'We were in pursuit of bandits,' Dorian explained, 'but we are desolate that your honoured father must leave before we have reached an accord.'
'My father is also put out. He asks you to accept his thanks for the generosity and hospitality you have extended to him.'
'Before he leaves I would be most grateful for his assistance. We have learned that there were dangerous bandits in the camp last night. Two men, one an Arab, the other a European, perhaps a Dutchman. Did your father speak to these men? I have had a report that they were seen leaving this tent during the night.'
Sir Guy smiled at the question, but
