than about his missing boat.

The _Sampaguita_, he said, was a thirty-foot auxiliary sloop with white
hull and red sails. It had once been the private yacht of an American
copra planter on Basilan who, alas, had been murdered by his Moro field
hands. Santos had not known the Moro guide, and had noticed nothing
unusual about him. And there the interview ended. Rick shook his head.
They were certainly not making progress.

"Is there anything I can do?" Captain Lim asked.

"I'm afraid not," Zircon replied. "Thank you, Captain. If you don't
mind, we'll walk back to the hotel. It's only a short distance. And I'm
sure the boys want to see this part of town. I do."

"Of course. Anyway, you must be my guests for dinner at the hotel. At
ten o'clock."

"We'll be delighted," Zircon answered. "Will you go back to the fort
now?"

"No. If you want me I will be at home, behind the hotel. It is the small
white cottage."

The three waved good-by, then turned toward the teeming wharf area,
which was also the town's market place. Just beyond the breakwater,
native outrigger boats with bright-colored sails in stripes and patterns
swept by in a kind of convoy.

Scotty asked an elderly Filipino who was watching, "Sir, may I ask the
name of that kind of boat?"

The Filipino smiled. "Colorful, yes? They are vintas. Moro boats from
Sulu Sea. They come to sell fish."

Scotty thanked him and the three walked slowly through the market place.
By unspoken consent they said nothing about their problem. All of them
knew they had reached a dead end, and none knew where to go from this
point.

They stopped once to watch two fighting cocks sparring with shielded
spurs. A few yards away they stopped once more, at a fruit vendor's
stall. Many of the fruits were new and strange. They took a moment to
learn about them from the vendor. There were mangosteens, not related to
mangoes, with red husks and pure-white fruit; lanzones that looked like
clusters of brown plums; foul-smelling but tasty durian; star apples,
and several varieties of banana, none of which looked like the Central
American variety.

Rick tried a mangosteen. He passed sections of the white fruit to Scotty
and Zircon, then bit into his, It was cool, tart, and delicious, unlike
anything he had ever tasted before. He decided he could become a
mangosteen addict in no time and started back to buy a bagful. A low
comment from Scotty stopped him.

"We've picked up a friend. He's