ebook. The guide shook his
head. "Please, you read."

Rick looked at him with astonishment. A guide who couldn't read? But
apparently it was so. "It is the store of Ali Moustafa," he explained.

Hassan shrugged. "I do not know it. But it can be found. _Enshallah._"

Although the boys did not recognize it then, the word was a common
expression meaning "If God wills it."

They would learn it, though, and with it other Arabic words, including
_zanb_, _dassissa_, and _khatar_--or, in English, crime, intrigue, and
danger!

CHAPTER IV

El Mouski

Hassan drove out of the hotel alley into a chaos of horns, pedestrians
who flirted with sudden death, wildly maneuvering cars, and donkey carts
that always seemed on the verge of being hit by an accelerating truck.
It was a normal day in Cairo traffic.

The boys watched with mixed fear and amazement--fear that Hassan would
hit someone and amazement that he didn't. Time after time he bore down
on a slow-moving Egyptian and Rick's heart leaped into his throat until
collision was averted by some miracle or other, usually a wild,
record-breaking leap by the pedestrian.

The trip from the airport had been along streets that formed a kind of
throughway, but in the city itself, the traffic was the kind that would
send an American traffic cop screaming for the riot squad. Here, no one
seemed to think anything of it.

The boys relaxed a little as it became clear that Hassan knew what he
was doing. His driving was perhaps a shade more careful than that of
most drivers. Once, as he sped down a crowded, narrow street at forty
miles an hour, horns blasted behind them.

Rick turned, but could see nothing wrong. He asked, "Why all the
honking, Hassan?"

"They want we go faster," the dragoman said.

Scotty laughed. "Might as well relax. This is the slow, sleepy pace of
the Middle East we used to read about."

Rick laughed with him. He had seen hectic traffic before, but nothing to
compare with Cairo. This wasn't traffic. It was some kind of wild
contest with no rules and only survival as the winner's prize. "Any
number can play," he muttered.

He tried to pay attention to signs, but they were in Arabic script. He
saw that modern Cairo was giving way to the older city. The buildings
were smaller, more closely spaced. Most were of wood, but a few were
obviously of ancient stone. In this part of the city, merchants
displayed their wares on the sidewalks in front of cubicle-s