ome
kind?" he asked.

Hassan nodded. "The little jackal barks--but the caravan passes."

Rick repeated the expression thoughtfully. It said a great deal. "I'll
remember that, Hassan."

There was something he had wanted to ask. "May I ask a personal
question?"

The guide spread his hands expressively. "You hired a dragoman, but he
has become your friend. Ask what you will."

"Thank you, Hassan. Scotty and I think of you as a friend, too. I wanted
to ask about your English. You've been speaking very good English to me
all day, but until we were captured, you spoke sort of broken English."

Hassan chuckled softly. "It is part of show I put on. My clients talk
too simple English to me most of the time. They don't expect me to know
good English. So I do not speak as well as I can. Now, with you and
Scotty, it is different. My broken English is habit, so I continue to
speak it until today. But I knew it would be different with you when we
had coffee together, and when we laughed together. That was when I knew
I could leave my show clothes at home and dress in a suit."

Rick laughed with him. "So that's why you wore fancy stuff only that
first day. But, Hassan, if you can't read or write, how did you learn
such good English?"

"I am like a parrot," Hassan replied. "I hear, and I repeat. For four
years I was houseboy to an American family, from USIS, what you call the
United States Information Service."

"They taught you English?" Rick prompted.

"I knew some, but we helped each other. I teached them Arab talk, and
they correct me when I speak American."

Hassan launched into a recital of his years with the Americans, who had
been transferred to India, but still wrote to him now and then. Rick
listened with only part of his mind. For the most, his thoughts went
back over ground he had covered before, since Youssef had dumped the two
of them next to an ancient crypt.

The big question was, of course, what would happen to them?

As though in answer, the little jackal appeared silhouetted on top of
the dune. He lifted his head to the full moon, and his voice rose in a
prolonged, yapping howl. Then, as suddenly, he was gone again.

Rick gave an involuntary shiver. By the time Youssef returned, he would
be in bad shape from thirst. He wondered how long he could hold out, and
in the same instant wondered why he should. There was some real value
attached to the cat. It was not manufacturing rights or sales, and it
wa