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if she were in pain. Durell watched her. She denied fear, he thought; but she was possessed by it. His anger was gone—at least, it was no longer directed against Jane King. He believed as much as she had told him. He would take care of the rest of it with Donegan, in Karachi.
    “Jane?”
    She shook her bowed head. He could see the part in her hair, the severe arrangement of the thick brown strands. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
    “There’s nothing to cry about,” he said.
    “Isn’t there?”
    “Unless there’s more, that you haven’t told me.”
    “It’s nothing that concerns you.”
    “Everything about everyone involved in this concerns me,” he said.
    “No. It’s just that I’m a fool, that’s all.”
    “A fool about what? You did your best.”
    She lifted her head with an effort, and he     saw     the tears in her blue eyes behind the fake, heavily-rimmed glasses.    She had a Midwestern accent, too, he decided, that     was far removed from the polished finishing-school language of Sarah Standish. When she stood up and walked away from him, down the garden path, he saw that she had the head and face of a prim schoolteacher and the body of an exotic courtesan. And she was probably unaware of either phenomenon.

    There was time for a shower, a fresh bandage on his leg, and food and coffee, before Colonel K’Ayub indicated he was ready to go into the city of Karachi. The thermometer inside the front door of the villa registered 110 degrees. It would be hotter in Karachi.
    They rode in a scout car, preceded by a jeep-load of natty soldiers and followed by two motorcycles. K’Ayub was not bashful about his political and military authority. He chatted easily about international problems, his big, soft body relaxed on the back seat. Jane King, still acknowledged by the Pakistani strong man as Sarah Standish, sat between him and Durell.
    “All is arranged for our departure to Rawalpindi tomorrow,” K’Ayub said. “The equipment is ready, the porters are hired, our quarters as we proceed to Base Camp One and the higher altitudes will be waiting for us. You are acquainted with mountain climbing, Mr. Durell?”
    “I’ve done some. I’m not an expert.”
    “Just so. But S-5 is really not much of a challenge to a climber. Rather uninteresting, in fact, except for the North Peak. I understand the first guide, Hans Steicher, is very professional. I’ve been in the area several times—a wild, desolate and beautiful land. We should be at our goal within the week, if all goes well.”
    “Do you expect it not to?”
    K’Ayub’s pale yellow eyes were without expression. “There is the Emir at Mirandhabad to deal with. And another element, as yet unclear, that obviously wishes to keep us out. We shall learn about it all, in good time.”
    Karachi broiled under the oppressive August sun. The road into it traversed a land that was flat and seared to the horizon. To the right, Durell glimpsed the moving white lines of the surf from the Arabian Sea. The Indus valley was a land of scorpions and vipers and eternally moaning hot winds. The scorched plain where Alexander the Great led his army from the Indus in 325 B.C. looked empty of water and life, except for the poisonous insects and herbs. Inland, the blazing sand hills rolled as far as he could see.
    Karachi held no charm or interest. It looked parched, a vast sprawl of flat roofs with a few domes and minarets upthrust through brown trees. The asphalt streets oozed, the diesel tramcars clanged irritably, and rubber-wheeled drays piled with cotton and pulled by philosophical donkeys or camels reluctantly got out of the way of K’Ayub’s convoy. Here, too, the white-collared crows that scavenged the city perched on every sagging power line.
    There was noise and heat and confusion. On Victoria Road, Durell saw the ramshackle slums and markets, the improvised minarets and mosques where the mullahs, the Moslem interpreters and teachers of