فصل 24

CHAPTER 24

THE MAN IN THE WHITE ROBE

MOLLY AWOKE TO FIND that the ship had docked. Through the porthole of her cabin, she saw that they were tied to a busy wharf, bustling with sun-browned men clad in loincloths and turbans. The men shouted in an unfamiliar tongue as they loaded and unloaded cargo ships with odd shapes and strangely rigged sails.

Molly squinted against the brilliant sun. She saw palm trees like those on Peter’s island and a port city of baked-mud houses painted a blinding white. Donkeys laboring under towering burdens, sometimes larger than the poor animals themselves, trudged slowly up narrow streets, which they shared with ox-drawn carts and a jostling mass of humanity—scores of barefoot, chattering children and sandal-clad men and women in flowing robes.

Many of the women, Molly noted with amazement, were carrying huge baskets balanced on their heads. But it was the sight of the majestic creatures next to the wharf that made her gasp with delight. She dressed quickly and ran to the big stern cabin, where she found her father busy disguising himself as a native. He had donned a long white robe and daubed his face with brown boot polish. He was now wrapping his hair in a turban.

“How do I look?” asked Leonard.

“Positively nomadic,” answered Molly. “Are those camels out there?”

“Indeed they are,” answered her father. “And I’m to ride one of them.”

“Is this Rundoon?” said Molly.

“No, we wouldn’t be safe there. This is Ashmar, just across the border to the west. The prince of Ashmar is an ally. I will pose as a carpet merchant and cross the border after sunset.”

“To find Peter,” said Molly, no longer smiling.

“Not quite yet. But soon, yes. Do you remember Bakari?”

Molly frowned for a moment. “The man from Egypt,” she said.

“Yes,” said Leonard. “That’s the one.” Bakari was a Starcatcher based in Egypt; he had warned the Starcatchers in England to “Beware the shadows”—the first they had heard about Ombra.

“I’m to meet him here,” Leonard said. “Our friend Ammm arranged it. Bakari has contacts in Rundoon. He will help us to find Peter and perhaps also find out what the Others are up to.” He finished wrapping the turban and turned to face Molly.

“Well?” he said.

“Splendid!” said Molly. “Even I wouldn’t recognize you. May I go see your camel now?”

Leonard frowned. “I’m sorry, Molly, but I can’t allow that. Agents of Rundoon are surely watching this port. You and George must remain belowdecks. You must not be seen.”

“But, Father!” she protested.

“Absolutely not, Molly. If word got back to Rundoon that an Englishman and his daughter had arrived by ship…well, we would be in great danger.”

“So we’re prisoners, George and I?”

“May I remind you,” said Leonard, with just a touch of anger in his voice, “that you and George should never have boarded this ship in the first place?”

Molly reddened and looked down. Leonard let his reprimand hang in the air for a moment, then put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. In a much softer voice, he said, “It’s for your own good, Molly. This place is very unsafe. If anything happened to you, I could not forgive myself.”

Molly looked up, her face somber. “But what about you, Father? Isn’t it unsafe for you as well?”

“I’ll be careful, I promise.” Leonard’s eyes twinkled. “Besides, I’ll have help.” He nodded toward a small, ornately carved wooden box on his writing stand.

Molly looked at the box, puzzled. “I don’t understand,” she said.

Leonard tapped lightly on the lid. “Is everything all right in there?” he asked.

The box emitted a muffled, discordant clattering of bells.

No, Tink was saying, everything is not all right, because I am inside this stupid box.

“Only a bit longer,” said Leonard. “We don’t want the crew seeing you, now, do we?”

“Tink is going with you?” said Molly, with just a hint of jealousy.

Of course I am, you silly goose.

“What did she say?” asked Molly.

“She says she’s sorry you can’t join us,” said Leonard.

Hours later, as the late-afternoon sun beat down on the Michelle, Molly and George watched through a porthole as the tall, white-robed figure of Leonard Aster descended the gangway to the wharf, carrying the small wooden box containing Tink. Leonard was met there by a stocky man with a thick black beard—Bakari, Molly assumed. He, too, wore a white robe, but his was stained and worn, as though he had been traveling. He led Leonard to a pair of kneeling camels.

The two men mounted the animals, a process that brought a smile to Molly’s face. Her father, an accomplished horseman, nearly slipped off the unfamiliar wooden saddle as the camel abruptly rose to its feet. But he managed to hang on, and in a few moments the two riders were moving.

Molly and George watched them start up the narrow street. Immediately, they were surrounded by barefoot children, holding their hands up toward the camel riders and beseeching them for coins, food, anything.

Then something else caught Molly’s eye: two men emerged from behind a building on the wharf. They were not dockworkers, and their full attention seemed to be on the two camel riders. The men started up the dusty street at a near trot, much faster than anyone else moved in this heat.

“Do you see those two?” said George.

“I do,” said Molly.

“I don’t like the look of them.”

“Nor do I. Father said there were agents about. That’s why we’re supposed to stay belowdecks, so they won’t see us. And why Father is in disguise.”

“By the look of things,” said George, “his disguise isn’t working.”

Molly nodded in grim agreement. The two men were trotting close behind the camels now. It was obvious: they were following her father and Bakari.

“Do you think we should try to warn your father?” said George.

“He said under no circumstances were we to leave the ship,” said Molly. “We’re to wait here until he comes back.”

“Yes, but that was when he thought he wouldn’t be found out,” said George. “If they know he’s here, then—”

George didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to; Molly had been thinking the same thing. Maybe he won’t come back.

She looked at George, her expression telling him all he needed to know.

“So,” he said, “I guess we’ll be leaving the ship, after all.”