"It looks about ten miles away."
"More than eighty."
The sun went down behind us while we watched, and here and there the little scattered lights came out among the silent hills in proof that there were humans who thought of them in terms of home.
Venus and Mars shone forth, yellow and red jewels; then the moon, rising like a stage effect, too big, too strongly lighted to seem real, peering inch by inch above the hills and ushering in silence. We could hear one muezzin in Jerusalem wailing that God is God.
"That over yonder is savage country," Grim remarked. "I think maybe you'll like it. Time to go now."
He said nothing more until we were scooting downhill in the car in the midst of a cloud of dust.
"You won't see me again," he said then, "until you get to El- Kerak. There are just one or two points to bear in mind. D'you care if I lecture?"
"I wish you would."
"When the messenger comes from ben Nasir, go to the Governorate, just outside the Damascus Gate, phone OETA, say who you are, and ask for the car. Travel light. The less you take with you, the less temptation there'll be to steal and that much less danger for your escort. I always take nothing, and get shaved by a murderer at the nearest village. If you wash too much, or change your shirt too often, they suspect you of putting on airs. Can't travel too light. Use the car as far as Jericho, or thereabouts, and send it back when the messenger says he's through with it. After that, do whatever the leader of the escort tells you, and you'll be all right."
"How do I cross the Dead Sea?"