Abdullah unhitched the genie bottle from his belt and put it carefully on the smooth rock beside him on the other side from the soldier. Then he wrapped himself in the blanket and settled down for what proved to be rather a disturbed night. The rock was hard. And though he was nothing like as cold as he had been yesterday night in the desert, the damper air of Ingary made him shiver just as much. In addition, the moment he closed his eyes he found he became obsessed with the wild beast in the cave up the ravine. He kept imagining he could hear it prowling around the camp. Once or twice he opened his eyes and even thought he saw something moving just beyond the light from the fire. He sat up each time and threw more wood on the fire, whereupon the flames flared up and showed him that nothing was there. It was a long time before he fell properly asleep. When he did, he had a hellish dream.

He dreamed that around dawn a djinn came and sat on his chest. He opened his eyes to tell it to go away and found it was not a djinn at all, but the beast from the cave. It stood with its two vast front paws planted on his chest, glaring down at him with eyes that were like bluish lamps in the velvety blackness of its coat. As far as Abdullah could tell, it was a demon in the form of a huge black panther.

He sat up with a yell.

Naturally nothing was there. Dawn was just breaking. The fire was a cherry smudge in the grayness of everything, and the soldier was a darker gray hump, snoring gently on the other side of the fire. Behind him the lower lands were white with mist. Wearily Abdullah put another bush on the fire and fell asleep again.

He was woken by the windy roaring of the genie.

“Stop this thing! Get it OFF me!”

Abdullah leaped up. The soldier leaped up. It was broad daylight. There was no mistaking what they both saw. A small black cat was crouching by the genie bottle, just beside the place where Abdullah’s head had been. The cat was either very curious or convinced there was food in the bottle, for it had its nose delicately but firmly in the neck of the flask. Around its neat black head the genie was gushing out in ten or twelve distorted blue wisps, and the wisps kept turning into hands or faces and then turning back to smoke again.

“Help me!” he yelled in chorus. “It’s trying to eat me or something!”

The cat ignored the genie entirely. It just went on behaving as if there were a most enticing smell in the bottle.