A Cleft Of Stars

CHAPTER SEVEN

Something inside me should have turned over at the sight of her but it didn't. I simply regarded her with a curious crunch of negative emotions, scarcely considering that she might be injured or even dead. We had never quarrelled, Nadine and I, so I found it difficult at first to define the resentment I experienced at her presence. The object of my anger accordingly was not so much herself but small things about her — I found her smart navy-and-yellow zipfronted jacket ridiculous, with its five-inch broad stripes across the breast and waist; I asked myself why the hell she had to wear the fancy vinyl hood I had knocked askew instead of a common-or-garden leather flying helmet. I didn't realize that what I was experiencing was a deep down sidekick from my showdown with Rankin and that my anger was really against myself for having half killed him and, for all I knew, robbed myself of the chance of getting him to confess. Nor did I find Nadine's arrival like a shot bird falling into my lap as touching as it might have been. I had planned to return to her and make amends by presenting her with a clean slate in regard to myself; and the fact that she had broken in on the first act while a lot of loose ends still lay around left me frustrated and annoyed. Nothing had worked out as I had intended: the situation seemed to have taken control, not I. I mentally castigated Dr Sands for an interfering if well-intentioned, two-timing old busybody. Without his directions, Nadine couldn't possibly have located me so soon in the huge territory.

I drew her goggles back to her hairline. Her eyes remained closed, her head and shoulders lolling slackly. I had always loved above all her expression of serenity. Even in her moments of deepest emotion it had never left her. Now I looked on a face which was the same, yet different. There was pain in it and a slight puffiness about the cheeks and lips on the left side under the nostril. With dawning astonishment I realized that I had been the cause of it. The knowledge didn't soften my resentment; just heightened the tumult of my emotions.

I began to haul her out of the cockpit but stopped halfway at the thought that she might have internal injuries. There was no sign of blood but still she made no sound. A further hasty check revealed nothing. Then I manhandled her on to my shoulders and stumbled towards the rear of the plane, out of reach of a possible explosion. There was a growing smell of burning rubber, hot oil and fuel. The hard gloss of the vinyl jacket prevented my feeling any contact with her body. Where the softness of her breasts should have rested against my shoulder there was merely the insentient plastic. It was as though the slack body had never known desire for mine. It all seemed part of the strange impersonality of the scene. Once we were well clear of any possible blast I put Nadine down and propped her up against a boulder. I unfastened a press stud above her right temple and got rid of the cap and goggles. Her long hair fell down and framed the stark white face, softening its contours. I made a hurried examination of her head but could find no injury. When I tried to free the awkward zip of her polo collar I found my fingers trembling: I dreaded what damage I might find.

I was still fumbling under her chin when she opened her eyes.

There was a flash of shock and disbelief; joy marked in her eyes but almost as it leant it was gone and the shadows shrouded their green depths.

There was an uncomfortable moment of constraint. of waiting. Neither of us knew what to say to deflate the tension with some trite or wryly humorous phrase. Her lids were heavy, perhaps with delayed shock from the crash. Still silent, her eyes on mine, she brought the ring to the tip of her tongue and then touched the back of my hand with the tiny wet spot she'd made.

The sound of fire came from the wreck. I assumed she had heard it too and got to my feet with the intention of going back for the pilot. She however not having heard the crackling, misconstrued my move and looked aghast.

'The plane's on fire — I'll try and get him out,' I managed to say. 'It could go up at any minute.'

'Guy, wait. . no, go.' Her voice was an uneven whisper. '

Save Peter. . I heard the bullet go into him. . but take care of yourself, for God's sake!'

The bullet had ripped into the airman's left shoulder and plugged the wound with a tear of his silk choker. I spotted its tiny entrance hole in the side of the cockpit. Spurred on by the brittle crackle of flames I hurried to get his safety strap loose. The blaze appeared to be gathering momentum and I was terrified at the thought of how soon it might reach the tanks. I struggled with the deadweight body, which seemed to hook on every projection, but eventually I got him to the ground. The flames a blow-torch on my back. I knelt to flip him on to my shoulders and somehow managed to pick him up and start off. We hadn't gone more than a few yards when the tanks exploded and threw us to the ground.

Little meteors of flaming fuel raced into the dry bush. One fell on to the pilot's jacket and I beat it out. With the tinder dry bush for fuel, each incendiary spot became the start of a new fire. I humped the pilot up again and stumbled towards where I had left Nadine but saw her coming, white and shaky, towards me. I tried to wave her back but she joined me and tried to help me set the pilot down in her own patch of shade. I found my shirt and hands sticky with the blood from his wound. A tall plume of smoke rose above the burning machine and everywhere the bush was ablaze.

I welcomed the need for quick action about the wounded man. It begged off all the impossible questions in Nadine's eyes and quietened the devils inside me.

'Who is he?'

'Peter Talbot. My father's personal pilot. He. . "

'The explanations can wait. He's in a bad way. The first thing to do is to get well clear of the fire.'

'Guy — you..

She seemed to sway a little. I went to her. 'Here! You'll pass out from heat stroke in that jacket. Off with it.' 'It's not the heat … Guy!'

'We can't talk now.

'Have you seen yourself? What have they been doing to you?'

She bit back the rest of her words.

I wondered if Rankin, too, had been shaken by my wild appearance. I suddenly became aware that my face was singed and stained from the Mannlicher misfire; one eye was bloodshot; my unshaven beard plastered with dust and sweat; my shirt ripped; an arm skinned and raw. I stank of petrol, sweat, cordite and fresh blood.

'There's a sort of cave over there.' I nodded towards my 'command-post', which merged remarkably well into its surroundings. 'We must move him out of the sun. It's a bit tricky crossing over. I started to explain and then asked dubiously, 'Do you think you can make it?'

'I'm all right. I'm not really hurt. A bit dazed, that's all.'

However, the shock of the crash was catching up on her fast. Despite her brave show of words she looked on the point of collapse.

She indicated the pilot: 'When you think Of all the flying risks he's come through, and then he crashes because of a bullet which wasn't his fault!'

There probably wasn't any imputation in her words but nevertheless I found myself replying defensively. 'I couldn't get there in time. I was just too late to prevent the shot.'

'We saw you waving to us. We both felt certain it was you.'

A billow of smoke, acrid with the smell of petrol fumes and kanniedood timber, swept over us.

'We must hustle,' I said. 'Soon this whole hillside will be ablaze. The "command-post" and its approaches are solid rock so we'll be safe there. I'll make the first trip with him. You wait where the wall ends and I'll come back for you. It's a nasty stretch and you're in no state to make it yourself.'

'What about. . I mean, the man who fired the shot?'

I laughed grimly. 'You needn't worry. I took care of Rankin.'

Her constraint cracked. 'You must be joking — Rankin I didn't feel up to meeting the emotional challenge which lay all the time just below the surface.

'I'll tell you later,' I replied, 'it's too involved. But Rankin's no threat to anyone at the moment. He's out — unconscious. Now help me get this man on to my back!'

I could sense the conscious effort she made to bring her nerves under control.

'Shouldn't we try to bandage the wound and stop the bleeding first?'

'I don't know enough to judge. Perhaps carrying him will make it worse. At a guess I'd say the slug is lodged inside him.'

She buried her head suddenly in her arm and cried out brokenly. 'It was all so good until. . until.. I couldn't find it in myself to comfort her. There were a score of questions I dared not face. I had not even started to come to terms with the situation which had exploded the moment I saw Rankin's sights tracking the aircraft; the range of events which had taken over extended much beyond Rankin now. At the press of a trigger he had brought unguessed-at forces into play and The Hill was somehow one of them. Without further ado I shouldered the pilot's limp body.

'Keep on the top side of the ruined wall and don't look down,' I told Nadine. 'Stay put at the gap until I come back for you.'

Heat bounced off the rocks and seemed to distort their shape. Its intensity made my head swim. There was nothing I could do to ease Talbot's passage and I suspected that we must have left a trail of blood behind us. Nadine kept close to me until we reached the unprotected section between wall and door. There I shifted my grip to steady myself: my arm muscles were kicking from the weight of my burden. I wanted to turn and reassure Nadine before starting off, but didn't know what to say. Looking up to take my line for the crossing, all I was aware of was The Hill: looming, blocking everything. Our Hill. I cannot pretend to remember staggering to the other side, blinded as I was by the insufferable light and my confused mental state, but the barred gate brought a return to reality. My earlier leap up the coping came back like a film flashback of which I was a spectator, not a participant. I put Talbot down and decided that once again I would have to attempt the stone face. This time, however, there was no revenge induced thrust to transform my hands and feet into automatic instruments finding their own holds. The ascent was painful, slow and energy-sapping. Once over the breastwork, however, it was only a matter of minutes before I had lifted the door's rough-hewn log catch.

To my astonishment, Nadine was crouched beside the airman. My general annoyance with her boiled over. 'My God! I don't want any extra casualties on my hands! I told you to wait for me!'

The sun was strong enough to burn all expression from her eyes except a bright carry-over of terror from her recent brush with death.

But her reply was a sensible one. 'You left a trail of blood all the way across. The sooner we do something for him the better'

'Come on then?

Together we hefted the inert body, Nadine carrying his feet and I his shoulders. We carried him into the 'command post'. But it was Rankin who held her attention. She became paler still at the sight of him, put down Talbot's feet, and went over to where he lay wheezing, standing back with a sort of shocked repugnance. She looked at me — reproachfully, I believed — and I stared back wordlessly.

'You did that to him, Guy? I wouldn't have believed it possible when I think of the gentleness I've known from you.'

I was in no mood for any criticism from her. 'Don't waste your sympathy on that hardline sonofabitch! He had two guns and a knife. There they are at your feet.'

She gathered up four shell cases-two stubby ones from the derringer and two lean ones from the Mauser-then with her earlier air of repugnance studied the fine 7 mm Mauser, with its ribbed barrel and glistening stock of African zebra wood, where Rankin had flung it before making at me. She nicked up the derringer by its flick-blade between thumb and forefinger holding it and the spent cases out to me. I read this as a further accusation.

'Guy, I'm not reproaching you. I. see the odds. I'm reproaching the whole situation we're in.'

'I'd cleaned it up — then you arrived.'

She turned away. The tension was punctuated by Rankin's gasps. I wondered if a rib had pierced one of his lungs. I added a little more kindly, 'That's all over now. Our immediate problem is Talbot.'

She pitched the derringer and shell cases away and came back to help the pilot. The command-post was backed by a hollowed-out cliff of holkrans sandsteen similar to my safe spot on The Hill. To the front the post dominated an area so extensive that one machine-gunner could have held a whole regiment at bay. At the rear the original roofline had collapsed centuries before, converting what must merely have been an overhang into a cave. The entrance was to one side, the interior out of sight. The place offered reasonable living quarters under the most trying weather conditions. Silently we carried Talbot into the shade.

We avoided each other's eyes.

'Let's see what's inside,' I suggested.

We edged past a rock pillar at the entrance and found ourselves in what was more a workshop than a home. A curious wooden structure, something between a bench and a skeletonized cupboard minus panelling, dominated the centre of the shadowy interior. Two wheels were set into openwork beams at the top. From them a long cogwheel spindle ran almost to the floor, where it was connected to a treadle which appeared to have come from a sewing-machine. On the surface of the bench a heavy balanced arm rested on a revolving disc. It looked like an outsize gramophone turntable. Set about it were a series of screw-clamps and large butterfly nuts. On the floor was a cast-iron pot with burned-out coals. Among them was a metal crucible filled with solder; and a similar empty vessel lay on the bench.

Nadine shivered, maybe because of the contrast with the heat outside; the coldness I felt was my recollection of Rankin's hands in the moonlight. I puzzled over what strange craft those hands might ply on the bizarre machinery before us. Nothing could have been in greater contrast to his hovel on the diggings than this neat, clean, trim abode.

'What is all this apparatus for, Guy?'

'It stumps me. But the place looks as if it's been lived in for a long time.'

'It must have been he who booby-trapped our expedition.' '

That's for sure. Other things too.'

She waited for me to explain further but I couldn't bring myself to muck-rake details of the guard's murder and Rankin's attempt on my life.

'What is it, Guy? What are you hiding from me? What has got into you?' She was obviously making an effort to keep her voice even.

I tried to lower the pressure between us. 'Let's take a look round. There may be something we can use to help Talbot.' '

Here's a camp-bed, and a stretcher too.'

'Perhaps there's some water. We'll need it if we're to clean up his wound.'

We went deeper into the cave. There were two chambers, a smaller one leading off the first, larger one. The inner room was clearly Rankin's kitchen.

'There's our water,' I said. 'And I could use a drop of brandy in it too.'

I went towards three or four large, buff-coloured. Aladdinlike storage jars. There were several dippers nearby, all decorated with a similar sort of triangular motif near the upper rim. There was also a spouted bowl with odd black markings.

'Guy! Please don't! Don't drink!'

Nadine was staring at the dippers as if they were instruments of torture.

'I doubt whether Rankin thought of poisoning me, among his other efforts,' I answered ironically. 'And by Heaven he owes me a drink! I intend to have it.'

'No, Guy!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' I said off-handedly. 'I haven't had any water since yesterday. Again because of Rankin all I've tasted is a lot of soapy pith.'

'Guy — what has been going on here at The Hill between you and Rankin? All I get from you are hints and a lot of evasions when I try to press my questions.'

'It can wait. If you won't let me use one of those things, I'll try my hands instead.'

'Let me get it for you. I. . I can't explain'

The constraint and touchiness was back in full force between us. I watched her with growing puzzlement as she avoided what were clearly containers for the water and filled instead a cup which she took from the table. I felt her concern for my thirst was more like the professional sympathy of a nurse for a patient than that of lover for lover. She had several small sips from my cup when I had finished. The same sort of feeling was evident when we went back to the pilot, acting like compassionate strangers in seeing to his wound. I used the derringer flick-blade to cut away his flying-jacket. The wound had almost stopped bleeding and we bathed it clean. It looked harmless for so deadly a thing — a small bruised blue-black swelling on the collarbone with a puncture in the centre.

Nadine eyed me questionably when I proceeded to cut away the clothing behind his neck.

'Look,' I pointed out. 'There's no exit mark. That's bad. It means that the bullet went in from the front, smashed his collarbone and penetrated deeper still. If it's ended up lodged against his spine, he's had it. On the other hand, it may have shattered into fragments when it hit bone. Then he may still have a sporting chance. Rankin's rather fond of dum-dum bullets.'

She swung back on to her heels and the thing which separated us flared lip.

'He's fond of dum-dum bullets-' she echoed. 'You know that!'

'Yes — I know that.'

'Guy,' she burst out. 'You're not here with me. . you haven't come back. . from something I don't, can't understand. . please. . I can't reach you. . please. I dropped my eyes and tugged the ripped sleeve clear of the wound. Then I looked up at her. There was something in her eyes I had never seen before. I should have taken her in my arms. But like a shell-shocked impotent I could not reach for the love I needed.

Instead I answered harshly: 'I found a man's head with the back of it blown away. Only a dum-dum bullet does that. Rankin fired the shot.'

She buried her head in her hands as if I had thrown the horrible thing on the ground in front of her.

'The head was off its body,' I went on. 'Rankin spent half last night trying to do the same to me.' I got up. 'Save yourself any feelings you may have about the way I roughed him up. I want him alive for one reason only.'

She looked up at me from where she knelt with a kind of uncomprehending despair. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think, think, think. I even asked myself the savage question, looking down on her lovely face, whether a love born of so strange a thing as The Hill had the strength to neutralize the acid which was eating into me.

'See here, Nadine,' I said more gently. 'A great deal has happened since. . since my. I could not bring myself to use the word 'walkout' to her face. 'I'm sorry if I sound half out of my mind. Yesterday. last night. .' The words would not come. I temporized and got a grip on my voice.

'Let's strap up Talbot as best we can. He could be dying. From the limp way he hung on my shoulder I'd say he's paralysed from the neck down. He needs a doctor and hospital care. So does Rankin. I want to check on him also.'

'Guy,' she replied raggedly, 'I want this thing your way. You've been through some awful hell you won't tell me about. Not long ago you would have. What is between us has slipped somehow. I don't know where anything begins or ends. But I'd like you to understand that for me it is simply enough that I've found you.'

My rawness erupted again. 'Sands?' I demanded.

'Don't say it like that! Yes, Dr Sands told me, but it was my idea! And I talked Peter into flying me to The Hill to look for you! He'd just bought the Tiger Moth for himself. He thought it was a bit of a lark. We told Father we were off together to a flying rally. He was all for it — daughter on the rebound with his personal pilot. He was only too glad to think I was getting you out of my system — a blasted jail-bird he called you — does all this really matter to you, Guy?'

'And you expected to find the flown bird?'

I regretted the crack the moment it slipped out. She brought her voice under control and said softly, with only a shadow of rebuke. 'I expected to find you. The man I loved. I haven't. I have the person of Guy Bowker, it's true, but not. . not. '

Trying for a breathing-space to sort things out inside myself, I fenced: 'This man's going to die while we stand here talking. Somehow we've got to get him to hospital in Messina.'

My brusque voice annoyed but steadied her. 'We can put the mattress from Rankin's bed in your Land-Rover,' she said. 'I'll hold him firm over the rough bits of track.'

'There isn't a Land-Rover.'

'It's not possible!'

'Mine's a shoestring outfit. Everything I have can fit into a couple of gunny-bags. In fact, it's all lying rignt now at the foot of The Hill.'

Did you walk? Through this sort of country?'

'No. I bought a boat in Messina. It's made out of an old flying-boat float with an outboard motor, but it goes. And it's shallow enough for the river.'

'But there's scarcely any water! Peter and I followed the river upstream from Messina.'

'It probably looks worse from the air than it really is. There are pools and shallow channels connecting them. You have to look for them, hard. Plenty of sand.'

'How did you manage to get over that?'

'Portage. The hard way. I dragged the Empress of Baobab as I call her across the sandy bits at the end of a rope. I guess I've got harness sores on my shoulders as a result. I'll never forget those sixty miles of pulley-hauley.'

'You really were keen to lose the world and me, Guy.' '

The boat's our only transport for Talbot.'

'From what you say it would be madness to attempt it.' 'In the first place I doubt whether we'd get him alive to the river. I've moored near a big pool at the confluence.' 'And. . Rankin?'

'It's about time we took a look at him too.'

We went outside to where he lay. His face was puffy and mottled and he was deeply unconscious. His breathing frightened me. When I pulled open his shirt Nadine flinched. The red-and-purple welt across his chest looked far worse than Talbot's wound.

'You. . you did that, Guy?'

It was one of those rhetorical questions which, under the circumstances, threw me on the defensive. 'You saw,' I rejoined. 'He had two guns and a knife. I was unarmed.'

She didn't reply immediately but gestured towards the looming, shimmering Hill.

'It was a place of love — that is what it meant to me. All the things that go with love. Now somehow it's changed, horribly, into something else. You're part of the change. . oh, Guy, Guy, doesn't the queen's ring still mean what it did?'

I could not face her hurt, pleading look: there was too much to explain all at once.

'Nadine, neither of us is in any shape for the questions which are uppermost in our minds. We're pretty well at the limit. Let's leave it and get some rest. I'll clean up first. We'll talk later and also try to make a plan about these two. I can't see that we can do anything for them at present. We're as marooned here as if we were on a desert island. Now give me a hand with Rankin.'

She looked at me penetratingly for a moment; and when she spoke her voice sounded less overwrought. "I'm almost afraid to touch him for fear of what it might do to him.'

We brought the stretcher over to him and, as gently as we could, lifted him on to it. We gave Talbot the truckle bed. When we had finished, the uncomfortable vacuum seemed once more to envelop us. This time it was Nadine who eased things.

'What we need is tea and something to eat. I'll fix it.'

The snack meal was a silent, strained little affair with only an occasional commonplace exchanged between us. Afterwards I sat on the rock floor by the cave entrance, meaning to keep watch over the terrain, on which the sun was beating remorselessly down. Nadine went inside. I loaded the magazine of Rankin's Mauser and put it by me — against what sort of contingency I wasn't quite sure. The unwinding process caught me unawares, and I fell asleep. It was dusk when I snapped into wakefulness. The Mauser had gone from my side and there was a soft leather cushion for my face to rest on.

Nadine sat ahead of me on a small stool, her chin, characteristically, cupped on her interlocked fingers. She was so still that for a moment I wondered if she too were asleep but she was in fact awake and staring fixedly at The Hill. It looked uglier and more menacing with, behind it, a setting sun as lurid as a film fake. A splendid tower of smoke hung over K2 and the remains of the plane. Its tip was chalk-rose in the sunset.

I remained motionless, not wishing to break the spell and wondering whether the things I had been through had really happened. There was only the faintest nimbus round her hair, which merged into the gathering darkness; her shirt was tinted yellow-gold at the shoulders. For a brief respite I felt good, good simply to be with her.

'Guy!'

The vignette of a few precious moments vanished: she swung round and got up. My sleep-soothed mind jerked into action at the imperative note in her voice.

I too now heard the distant sound and in a second was on my feet and with her at the parapet. It came intermittently, echoing among the fading hills.

'That's an airscrew.'

'Yes, Guy, it is! Listen! It's coming from somewhere over by the river!'

This could be salvation for Talbot and Rankin. We held our breaths. One moment the sound seemed close, the next far away. It was higher pitched than the Tiger Moth's engine.

'Someone must have spotted the smoke,' I said.

'It's much too soon for an air search; they won't know until tomorrow at the earliest that the Tiger Moth is missing. Peter and I flew from Pietersburg and that's hundreds of miles away to the south. We checked out a false destination on purpose to hide our trail. They won't dream of looking here.'

'I'd guess then that some other plane has come to investigate the smoke — we're right on the frontier.'

'The regular air route's far away near Messina. . listen, Guy, it's stopped!'

The minutes ticked by. 'Nadine,' I said slowly. 'The most likely thing is that it's a relief plane come to pick up the guard.. I explained briefly about the murder at the hut.

'I begin to understand better now,' she replied sombrely. I wished I could see the expression on her face but it was really dark now.

'If it had been the guard plane, surely it would have made some signal to the hut?' she argued. 'And anyway it doesn't seem a very likely time of day to come and fetch the guard.' '

There it is again!'

The noise came through clearly but we could not pinpoint it.

'It seems very light for an aeroplane engine,' she remarked. '

But that's the sound of a propeller all right.'

'It's stopped again.'

'If it's cutting on and off it means the machine's in trouble-perhaps it knows about the airstrip and is trying to locate it for an emergency landing.'

We waited for it to resume but after ten minutes there was still nothing.

'We would surely have heard it if it had crashed?' she asked.

'Yes. In this stillness you can hear a jackal bark miles away. Also, there's no sign of a fire. Think what a pyre the Tiger made — we're bound to see it.'

After keeping our eyes skinned for another ten minutes from our grandstand perch we gave up. The uncertainty disrupted our discussion of further plans for Rankin and Talbot. It would have been stepping from the frying-pan into the fire to leave The Hill when help might be at hand. Nadine held out her powerful torch, but I shook my head. Though as concerned as she for the plane's safety, I knew that any signal from where we stood would mislead the pilot into disaster. And any attempt to make our way to the airstrip miles away at night through the bush would be futile. We decided to stay where we were until morning.

The tip of the plane's smoke pyre vanished with the full onset of night. The stars grouped themselves in epaulettes on The Hill's shoulders. Its bulk was invisible but we still sensed its dominion. At moonrise it would re-emerge, like a centurion standing athwart Africa.

The disappearance of the need for further action or consultation over the injured pair inevitably brought about the confrontation between us. I dreaded it but there was no escape. The long silence before she began was an ominous curtain-raiser.

I half expected her to reproach me or plead but she did neither.

'Guy,' she said, 'What I am going to say now is something I was reserving for the night we first make love. I've thought all along that would be the moment but I've changed my mind. I think you need to know it now that we're faced with a crisis in our love.'

Her quiet almost detached words about her own body being pledged to mine and the strong physical pull of her presence sent a powerful shock-wave of sexual charge through me. I yearned to see her face and eyes and slim figure but the hazed stars were too dim. The soundtrack of the African bush was silent.

'The queen and her ring are of course at the heart of it.. She smiled slightly, the first time since the crash. . 'Oddly enough, those old dippers I stopped you drinking from are also involved. But I'm not doing this very well, kicking off at the end instead of the beginning.'

'The Hill's the start. I think we've all been so dazzled by its treasures — all that gold, the golden rhino and the crown and other stuff — that it's blinded us to another side which is equally important, if not more so.'

Her voice warmed and again I wished for some light, to see what I knew must be in her eyes.

'You remember how excited Dr Drummond became when I discovered the statuette?'

'I'll never forget that day, for more reasons than one.' She inclined towards me on her stool; the thing sparked between us like two joined electric terminals.

'Well, it was proof of something he had suspected for years although he'd no direct evidence. You were out for the count in hospital when this was going on. All the treasure was proof enough of The Hill's temporal power, but the statuette revealed the other side of the coin.'

'What do you mean, Nadine?'

'The Hill was a symbol of spiritual power throughout the whole of Africa south of the Sahara.'

'One statuette couldn't have proved all that.'

'No. But it confirmed Dr Drummond's suspicions. You see, years before, he'd found an ancient inscription hinting at a powerful force marching down Africa towards where we are now. It was led by a general or a king — maybe both offices were combined — who claimed he 'knew God'; and who demanded in the name of his God the allegiance of all the countries through which he travelled. And he got it. Backing this rallying-call was a quite remarkable political machine which enforced his rule. There's no doubt that he was some sort of oracular master-mind who gave supernatural revelations to the masses. Anyway, he surrounded himself with enough mystique and terror to ensure that long after he and his stronghold of The Hill had passed away he continued to hold superstitious sway over millions. Do you wonder The Hill is still regarded as taboo?'

'If all this is so, where is his grave? We both know that the one with the treasure was the queen's.'

'That's what is so curious-it never has been found'

I wondered where all this was leading. I couldn't see that it had much bearing on Nadine and myself.

I think she detected some impatience in my tone and hurried on.'Rankin's water dippers come into this — you wondered why I wouldn't let you use them?'

'I still do.'

'They're not for water at all. They're called funerary furniture. They come from a grave; not a human one.'

'I thought all graves were human.'

'The dippers were really sacred and symbolic things which were put in the grave of a bull which had been specially slaughtered and buried with elaborate ritual. The dippers are ritual urns and were cursed against being used by humans. It's known as a beast burial ceremony. The eggheads talk themselves into knots about them — all sorts of theories about their being relics of the bull cult of the Hamitic peoples of the Nile Valley, and so on endlessly. Yet here we have the same thing at The Hill, thousands of miles away, and not a trace of a link anywhere in Africa between. I think differently about them. You see, my. . my heart tells me otherwise.'

I was still mystified, unable to equate anything she was saying with ourselves.

'I've put myself pretty ruthlessly in the mental dock since you left,' she went on. 'I couldn't just laugh you off, or the things which began our love. But I did ask myself whether I had allowed my emotions to run away with me.' She added, apparently at a tangent: 'But I know she did it for great love'

We both understood whom she meant but I repeated the word, to hear her explanation.

'She?'

'Our queen, Guy.' Now the answers tumbled out. 'When I saw it I realized that I had to have a ring like hers for our love too. I understood deep down that it was she who had offered the sacrifice.

''Saw what, Nadine?'

'In all the other graves the bodies are buried in the traditional way: in a sitting position, arms flexed, chin on knees, facing north. Not she. She.. she..

'What are you trying to say?'

'She had them lay her body out- in the love-making position. She must have died after the king and she believed she was going to him again. They were both in their prime and it was their faith that they would meet again in the next world. And she expected him to make love to her. All the things the stuffy old professors call funerary urns aren't that at all. They're for her perfumes, her powders and her cosmetics. She wanted him to find her in death as he had done in life: beautiful, perfumed, lying waiting for his love. It was a lover's grave, Guy. Now do you understand about the ring? And the occasion when I had decided you should hear this from me?'

The picture of her standing in the trench flooded back to me. I was overwhelmed. I said the first thing that came to mind.

'What has all this to do with sacrifice?'

She started to reach out her hand to me but hesitated at the barrier still between us. Her words became a torrent.

'I should really thank you for what you did by walking out, Guy. You taught me to understand her. When a woman's heart cries out as mine did — and as hers must have done — it looks round for some physical thing to break in sympathy. It's just got to tell — the world, God, anyone — it's breaking. You've got to say it somehow or go mad. Her king went away in death and her heart burst. It's as if I had inherited her grief along with her ring. When a heart bleeds, there must be blood. I know. She found release in sacrifice. The difference between us is that I don't, like her, have to crash the barrier of death. That's why I'm here and I thank God I can still reach out and touch you.'

She choked and got up and went quickly to the stone parapet, staring in the direction of The Hill. I rose and went to her. Had I remained sitting, however, the invader could never have got past my gun and perhaps we might not have been drawn into the subsequent turmoil of events. ·

She said very slowly and deliberately. 'Since — you — went — away — '

The strange timbre of her voice was like the sound of bells muted by grief.

Four short, simple, terrible words, my darling: "since you went away":

I did not see, only sensed him. I wheeled round, every nerve taut. I saw the flicker of his shadow vanish into the cave. He had slipped past our backs.

I leapt for Rankin's Mauser and worked a bullet into the breech.

A voice commanded. 'Dika! Dika!'

Nadine and I swung towards the doorway.

'A charming fancy, don't you think?' said a mocking hidden voice. 'You have to dissect a hyena before you can tell its sex. My Dika could be male or female, I don't know. And Sappho's Dika — what was she? But I suspect that lesbianism is not unknown among hyenas either.'

He came forward so that I could make out the outline of his figure but not his face.

'I don't see any poetic wreaths or garlands for Dika but it's a pretty snug hideout you've got here. Without Dika I would never have found it.'