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stopped the car in front of a Konic sign. “I go with you,” he said. “He may not speak such good English as me.” They walked through the door into a dusty shop with lines of kerosene tins stacked along one wall, an ancient rifle suspended from the ceiling, an assortment of dull brass and copper pots,cases of cola, and glass jars and boxes on the shelves. A man shuffled out from an inner room, his lined brown face brightening at sight of them.
    “Cameras?” he said.
“Yes!”
he exclaimed, and walking over to a wooden chest he opened it and delved into it, dug deep, and brought up a huge, dusty, forlorn-looking black box, and then another one equally as dusty and old. “Cameras,” he said proudly. “Russkies.”
    “Russkies?” Farrell said in astonishment, touching one. “You mean these are
Russian
cameras?”
    He nodded and announced that he would sell the somewhat smaller one for fifty American dollars, the larger for seventy-five.
    “One could scarcely sling one of these over one’s shoulder,” said Mrs. Pollifax, looking at them with interest. “Or find film for them, either; they must be at least fifty years old.”
    “You buy?”
    “Shukren
, but no—
la,”
she said. “I’m sorry.”
    Khalid, embarrassed, said, “Perhaps another shop?”
    Farrell intervened gently. “I think we’d better go on now to our hotel.” Secretly he was wondering, with considerable amusement, what their surveillants must be making of this; as they left the shop he saw the familiar gray car parked discreetly at some distance up the street.
    F or a mere overnight stay Farrell had piled his gear into a knapsack, while Mrs. Pollifax had packed what she needed in an open straw bag with handles, into which she had added her new djellaba—or
galabiyyas
, as the merchant had called it—for the warmth of it at night. Finding a group of German touristslined up at the hotel’s registration desk, and knowing they already had a reservation, they were delighted to find a terrace that overlooked the ruins of Palmyra and where they could wait for the group to disperse. They retreated there at once, bags in hand, although not before Mrs. Pollifax had seized upon a copy
of Palmyra: History, Monuments & Museum
—“just what Cyrus will enjoy,” she told Farrell. Once they were settled Farrell disappeared and returned with two plates of baba ghannoj, a beer and a cola, and they ate lunch gazing out upon the remains of the long-ago city that had been Palmyra, reduced now to acres of truncated columns, arches, walls and temples, the earth littered with fallen blocks of stone.
    “Cyrus told me something of this,” she mused. “Palmyra is where Queen Zenobia ruled, much loved and very successful until—Such a musical name, isn’t it?”
    “Until what?” asked Farrell, chasing the last shred of eggplant with a slice of bread.
    “Until what I don’t remember, except that eventually she was captured by the Romans and taken back to Rome to be paraded in gold chains.”
    “And now has a hotel named for her.” Farrell nodded. “Such is immortality.”
    “Cynic,” she retorted, and turned to her guidebook for directions. Their hotel stood just inside the walls of Palmyra, very near the streets of Tadmor. She said, “It looks as if we need only leave the hotel, turn to the right, and walk down the road past what’s called the Temple of Baalshamin to reach the Monumental Arch that stands at the end of the main avenue.” With a glance at Farrell she added, “We’d better go now; the noon call to prayer ended ten or fifteen minutes ago, we’ll be late if we don’t stir ourselves, register, and leave.”
    “I know.” Farrell sighed. “It looks very hot down there and it’s so comfortable here, although I admit I’m growing slightly tired of eggplant.”
    “Any sign of our not-so-friendly escorts?” she asked.
    He nodded. “One man, dark glasses, was standing in the lobby looking very awkward and out of place. Okay,