The Egyptian Cat Mystery Part 21

Rick nodded. "Do jackals always bark at night?"

"Always. It is their kismet."

Their fate, Rick thought. Born to bark at the empty desert. He wondered if the little doglike animals enjoyed it. "Do they always bark at nothing?"

"No. Sometimes they bark at people. Like now. He bark at us."

Rick grinned feebly. "He doesn't like us using his desert. Well, I'd be happy to give it back to him."

The dragoman nodded. "Also. You know, when our people want to say time go by ... how you say? ... life goes on and no man can stop time or make much change in things, they speak of the jackal."

Rick looked at the guide with interest. He had been glad all through the long hours of Ha.s.san's presence. The Sudanese had turned out to be an entertaining and thought-provoking companion. "Is it a saying of some kind?" he asked.

Ha.s.san nodded. "The little jackal barks--but the caravan pa.s.ses."

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

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, Ha.s.san. 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."

Ha.s.san 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, Ha.s.san, if you can't read or write, how did you learn such good English?"

"I am like a parrot," Ha.s.san 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."

Ha.s.san 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 s.h.i.+ver. 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 was not revenge. He was sure of that.

Youssef had said that he had no sentimental attachment to the cat. He had also said he disliked unnecessary violence. Rick wondered what the thief considered "unnecessary."

What else could he recall of Youssef's talk? He had said that the cat was not important, that it had elements of value to some people, and that he never lied. If one took his words at face value and believed him, then the cat itself was not important. What did that leave? Rick could see only one thing: that it was important only because it _contained_ something. Youssef's words simply reinforced the conclusion he and Scotty already had reached.

"Elements of value to a few people," Youssef had said. That might mean only a few people knew what the cat contained. If you didn't know, it was only a plastic cat. If you did know what it contained ... well, Youssef knew, and he wanted the cat badly enough to risk a kidnaping.

Rick wondered where the cat was now. He had no idea of what had happened to Ha.s.san's car. If it was left on the road and not searched, Scotty or someone from the project would recognize it. Scotty would certainly search the car, and he would find kitty. It was what Rick would do, and he and Scotty thought alike on many things.

Ha.s.san finished his recital of a trip to the Valley of the Kings with his American employers and Rick took advantage of the lull to borrow a match. He lighted it and looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight.

Had Scotty met Kemel Moustafa at seven? Rick thought he probably had, and wondered what Third Brother's reaction to his mysterious disappearance had been. If Scotty had the cat, had he delivered it? Rick thought not. Scotty would keep the cat, for bargaining purposes.

He found himself yawning. "Ha.s.san, when do you think Youssef will come back?"

"If he wants us alive and able to talk, maybe day after tomorrow. If not--_la samah Allah!_--maybe longer."

"What's _la samah Allah_?" Rick stumbled over the p.r.o.nunciation.

"G.o.d forbid," Ha.s.san said grimly.

"Amen," Rick echoed.

He s.h.i.+fted position. "We'd better get some sleep. Should we go into the crypt or stay out here?"

The crypt was only a cubic chamber of rough stone, partly filled with drifting sand. Desert winds had been alternately covering and uncovering it for centuries.

"Stay out here until morning. Then we go in out of sun, like today.

Youssef good to us. With no shelter from the sun, we would not last long."

"He's a fine fellow," Rick said without heat. "Good night, Ha.s.san."

"_Leltak s'aeeda_, Rick. Good night to you."

The boy curled up in a ball, knees tucked into stomach, head resting on one arm. He covered up as much as possible with the short coat, squirmed until he had a depression for his hip in the sand, and closed his eyes.

On the nearby dune the little jackal peeked over the top at the two p.r.o.ne figures and sang his vast displeasure to the moon. From faraway a friend or relative joined in the serenade. It was the last thing Rick heard.

Ha.s.san shook him. "Rick! Awaken, please! Camels coming."

Rick came back to reality from a dream of emptiness and loneliness in a darkened desert. The moon had set and false dawn was burning on the far horizon. He shook his head blearily. "What? Who's coming?"

"Not know. I woke and saw camels on the sky."

"In the east?"

"Yes. Against sky."

Rick s.h.i.+vered in the biting chill of early morning. He doubted that any legitimate travelers came this way. Youssef would not have left them near a caravan route. He could only guess that the thief himself was coming back, and he grew colder at the thought. Perhaps Youssef had decided not to wait to soften Rick up. On the other hand, there was a remote possibility he had the cat. If he was a thief with honor, he might simply be coming to take them back.

The idea seemed unlikely. Scotty wouldn't give up the cat, except in exchange for the two of them. If Youssef had found it himself, it was hours ago. He wouldn't have waited to search Ha.s.san's car, if he had ever intended to search it.

An inner voice urged, "Tell him where the cat is. It's not your cat, and there's no reason to believe that Kemel Moustafa has any more right to what's inside of it than Youssef has."

But there was a deep streak of stubbornness in the Brants, which Rick had inherited. He knew he wouldn't give in until he absolutely had to.

When that time came he would tell Youssef the truth, that he had hidden the cat in the Egyptian Museum. What he would not say was that the cat had been recovered and that he had left it in Ha.s.san's car.