Ali, however, disappointed at not finding a great quantity of gold and amber, the following morning sent the same people, to examine whether anything was concealed about his person.

They searched his apparel, and took from him his gold, amber, watch and a pocket compass.

He had fortunately in the night buried another compass in the sand, and this, with the clothes he had on, was all that was now left him by this rapacious and inhospitable savage.
The pocket compass soon became an object of superstitious curiosity, and Ali desired Mr.Park to inform him, why the small piece of iron always pointed to the Great Desert?
Mr.Park was somewhat puzzled: to have pleaded ignorance, would have made Ali suspect he wished to conceal the truth; he therefore replied, that his mother resided far beyond the land of Sehara, and whilst she lived, the piece of iron would always point that way, and serve as a guide to conduct him to her, and that if she died, it would point to her grave.

Ali now looked at the compass with redoubled wonder, and turned it round and round repeatedly, but finding it always pointed the same way, he returned it to Mr.Park, declaring he thought there was magic in it, and he was afraid to keep so dangerous an instrument in his possession.
On the morning of the 20th, a council was hold in Ali's tent respecting Mr.Park, and its decision was differently related to him by different persons, but the most probable account he received from Ali's son, a boy, who told him it was determined to put out his eyes, by the special advice of the priests, but the sentence was deferred until Fatima, the queen, then absent, had seen the white man.

Mr.
Park, anxious to know his destiny, went to the king and begged permission to return to Jarra.