Santiago and the hostile chief

Santiago and the hostile chief meet under the most extreme conditions imaginable: Santiago and the alchemist are captured by a tribe of blue-veiled warriors and brought before the chief, who accuses them of being spies. The alchemist, speaking for the terrified boy, declares that Santiago is an alchemist who can demonstrate extraordinary powers, and offers the chief the boy's entire savings—gold coins that the chief accepts without a word, knowing they are enough to buy many weapons. The chief grants the travelers three days to prove the claim, warning that if Santiago cannot transform himself into the wind, both their lives will be forfeit.

The Test of Destiny

The chief's challenge is the ultimate test of Santiago's Personal Legend, the concept Melchizedek had introduced when he said that everyone, when young, knows what their destiny is, but a mysterious force later convinces them it is impossible to realize it. The alchemist reinforces this by telling Santiago that if a person is living out his destiny, he knows everything he needs to know, and that the only thing making a dream impossible to achieve is the fear of failure. Santiago, who had wept in the empty marketplace of Tangier believing God was unfair to those who believed in their dreams, and who had later chosen to think of himself as an adventurer in quest of his treasure rather than a poor victim, now faces a situation where his life literally depends on his ability to master the lessons he has learned. The chief, a man of the desert who respects courage and despises cowards, watches as Santiago climbs a cliff and begins to speak with the desert, the wind, and the sun, asking each for help in turning himself into the wind.

The Transformation and Its Witness

When the simum—the fierce desert wind—blows that day as it had never blown before, the chief witnesses the miracle. For generations thereafter, the Arabs recount the legend of a boy who turned himself into the wind, almost destroying a military camp in defiance of the most powerful chief in the desert. When the wind ceases, the boy is no longer where he had been; he is standing next to a sand-covered sentinel on the far side of the camp. The men are terrified at his sorcery, but two people are smiling: the alchemist, because he has found his perfect disciple, and the chief, because that disciple has understood the glory of God. The chief, who had earlier made a mental note of the names of two commanders who expressed fear during the storm, planning to remove them from their commands because true men of the desert are not afraid, now recognizes that Santiago has passed the severest test.

The Aftermath and the Chief's Role in Santiago's Return

The following day, the chief bids Santiago and the alchemist farewell and provides them with an escort party to accompany them as far as they choose. This act of respect and generosity enables Santiago to continue his journey to the Pyramids. Yet the chief's role in Santiago's story does not end there. It is the chief's own words, spoken when he and his men beat Santiago at the Pyramids after finding him digging, that ultimately reveal the treasure's true location. The chief tells Santiago that two years earlier, right on that same spot, he had a recurrent dream: he should travel to the fields of Spain, look for a ruined church where shepherds and their sheep slept, and dig at the roots of a sycamore growing out of the ruins of the sacristy to find a hidden treasure. But, he says, he was not so stupid as to cross an entire desert just because of a recurrent dream. Santiago, standing up shakily, looks once more at the Pyramids and laughs, his heart bursting with joy, because now he knows where his treasure is. The hostile chief, who had been the instrument of Santiago's greatest ordeal, becomes the unwitting messenger who completes the circle of the quest, proving that every search begins with beginner's luck and ends with the victor's being severely tested, and that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.