Stones of Fire

94

As though trapped in a dream from which he could not awake, Cædmon surveyed the wreckage. The explosion having been seen for miles, rescue workers, naval personnel, police and local fishermen had descended in an excited swarm on the rock-strewn beach.

Like many explosion sites he’d seen over the years, this one had the familiar trappings — yellow tape, black smoke, smouldering hunks of twisted metal. At a glance he saw that no man could have survived the blast. Although that didn’t deter the local police divers, who were plopping salmon-like from the starboard side of a nearby vessel, aided in their search by powerful underwater torches that cast an otherworldly glow through the dark sea.

‘He thought he could walk on water,’ Edie, standing beside him, murmured. ‘Boy, was he ever wrong.’

‘It’s over. At least for the moment. Perhaps now the voices of tolerance and compassion can be heard.’

‘Or, put another way, God works in mysterious ways.’

‘Mmmm,’ he grunted, unable to see God’s hand in the violent events that had transpired.

He and Edie had kept very much to the sidelines, two curious but innocent bystanders. To cover themselves they had told the police they were a honeymooning couple who had ‘got the wild notion into our heads to spend a romantic night at the ancient tower’. And while they had heard a thunderous explosion, they ‘had no idea what caused it’. Coitus interruptus and all that. The lie took, the police not favouring them with so much as a second glance.

‘Deheb! Deheb!’ a grizzled fisherman exclaimed as he charged through the surf, excitedly pointing to a rivulet of molten gold visible in the soot-coloured sand.

Staring at the stream, Cædmon felt like a battle-wearied and defeated knight home from the wars.

The Ark of the Covenant had not withstood the blast. He had failed in his quest. What was left of the sacred Ark of the ancient Israelites was slowly being washed out to sea. He contritely glanced heavenwards. I gave it my all. But his all had not been good enough.

Feeling the sting of tears, the crash site turning into a nightmarish blur, he abruptly turned his back on Edie. She’d seen enough. She didn’t need to see him break down and cry. ‘I need to relieve myself,’ he muttered, adding yet another lie to an ever-mounting heap. With a wave of his hand, he headed for the far end of the rocky beach, removing himself from the mêlée and the contorted scraps of smouldering steel.

His vision still slightly blurred around the edges, he switched on his torch. So I don’t break my bloody neck, he thought irritably as he navigated over and around the tumbled rocks that had over the years flaked away from the imposing cliff. Like so many orphaned children.

Emotionally and physically drained, he seated himself on a flat-topped boulder. Elbows braced on his thighs, head supported between his hands, he stared morosely at the gently rolling waves.

‘How could I have been so arrogant as to think that —’ He stopped in mid-castigation.

He bounded off his perch and scrambled over several large boulders, manoeuvring onto his stomach so he could better see the golden object wedged between two mammoth pieces of limestone.

He shone his torch into the crevice.

His breath caught in his throat.

‘Bloody hell.’

There, upended, was an elaborate golden lid measuring approximately two-and-a-half by four feet.

The lid to the Ark of the Covenant. What the ancient Hebrews had called the mercy seat.

Affixed to the lid were two winged stern-faced figures. The cherubim, Gabriel and Michael. ‘I will meet with thee and will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the Ark.’

Without a doubt, it was the most spectacularly beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

‘God does truly work in mysterious ways,’ he murmured, thinking that the cherubim were traditionally associated with the primal element of fire.

How ironic.

Utterly bedazzled, he stretched out a hand. Just as quickly, he withdrew his arm, suddenly recalling the fate of the hapless men of Bethshemesh. Worried that a residual spark of the Ark’s awesome power might still inhabit the golden lid, he rolled onto his back and gazed up, silently asking, begging, permission.

Instead of a heavenly dispensation, he saw the sins of his life flash in quick succession across his mind’s eye like so many cue cards.

‘Sod it.’ He rolled back onto his belly and shone his torch into the crevice. Teeth clenched, he shoved his hand into the rocky fissure and committed the unthinkable — he placed his hand upon the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.

When nothing untoward occurred, he slowly inched his fingers along the rim, detecting some sort of ornamentation. He adjusted the angle of the torch, enabling him to inspect a small incised figure that had the body of a man and the head of a falcon.

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘What are you doing?’

He sat upright. ‘Have a look.’ He extended a hand to help Edie onto the boulder. Then he directed the torch beam at the golden lid.

‘It’s the lid!’ she exclaimed, nearly toppling back off the boulder.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ he replied, knowing he was about to burst a very large bubble. ‘Do you see that row of markings on the rim?’

She inched closer to the crevice. ‘Uh huh.’

‘Those are Egyptian hieroglyphics.’ Reaching into the crevice, he pointed to a line of incised characters. ‘This is a rough translation, mind you, but I believe the etched inscription reads, “Ra-Harakhti, supreme lord of the heavens”.’

Edie immediately snatched the torch out of his hand and directed the beam into the fissure, evidently needing to see for herself. ‘But I don’t understand… Why are there Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Ark of the Covenant?’

‘Because it’s not the Ark of the Covenant. It’s an Egyptian bark.’

‘An Egyptian bark,’ she parroted, clearly stupefied. ‘But… are you absolutely certain?’ she demanded, the woman a hard nut to crack. ‘And what about the two angels on top?’

‘Isis and her sister Nephthys, I suspect. As you may recall, the ancient Egyptians were the originators of a sacred chest known as a bark. Furthermore, I believe an Egyptian bark was the model used by Moses in creating the fabled Ark.’ He took the torch from her shaking hand. ‘It would seem that Galen of Godmersham uncovered an Egyptian bark, not the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant.’

Tears cascaded down Edie’s cheeks. Soon followed by a burst of raucous laughter.

‘Bloody hell!’ she bellowed.

At hearing the spot-on impersonation, Cædmon grinned.

‘Come here, love.’