The Seventh Scroll

the perfect excuse for going down into the Abbay gorge." He closed the

book, and went on, "As you pointed out, to cater for our own expedition

would require months of planning and organization, not to mention the

expense. It would mean having to obtain approval and permission from the

Ethiopian government. In Africa that can take months, if not Years."

"I don't imagine that the Ethiopian government would be too cooperative

if they suspected our real intentions," she agreed.

"On the other hand, there are a number of legitimate hunting safari

companies operating throughout the country. They have all the necessary

permits, governmental contacts, vehicles, camping equipment and logistic

back, up necessary to travel and stay in even the remotest areas.

The authorities are quite accustomed to foreign hunters arriving and

leaving with these companies, whereas a couple of ferengi nosing around

on their own would have the local military and everybody else down on

them like a herd of angry buffalo., ( So we are going to travel as a

pair of dik-dik hunters?"

"I have already made the booking with a safari operator in Addis Ababa,

the capital. MY Plan is to look upon the whole of our project in three

distinct and separate stages.

The first stage will be this reconnaissance. If we find the lead we are

hoping for, then we will go back again with our own men and equipment.

That will be stage two. Stage three, of course, will be getting the

booty out of Ethiopia, and that I assure you from past experience will

not be the easiest part of the operation."

"How will you do that-' she began, but he held up his hands.

"Don't ask, because at this stage I don't have even the vaguest idea how

we will do it. One stage at a time."

"When do we leave?"

"Before I tell you when, let me ask you one more question. Your

interpretation of the Taita riddle - did you explain that in the notes

that were stolen from you at the oasis?"

"Yes, everything was either in those notes or on the microfilm. I am

sorry."

So the uglies will have it all neatly laid out for them, just the way

you laid it out for me."

"I am afraid they will, yes."

"Then to reply to your question as to when, the answer is tout de suite,

and the tooter the sweeter! We must get into the Abbay gorge before the

competition beats us to it.

They have had your conclusions and suppositions for almost a month. For

all we know they are on their way already!

"When?" she repeated eagerly.

"I have booked two seats on the British Airways flight to Nairobi this

Saturday - that is, in two days' time. We will connect there with an Air

Kenya flight to Addis that will get us in on Monday at around midday. We

will drive down to London this evening and stay over at my digs there.

Are your yellow fever and hepatitis shots up to date?"

"Yes, but I have no equipment and hardly any clothing with me., I left

Cairo in rather a hurry."

We will. see to that in London. Trouble with Ethiopia is it's cold

enough to emasculate a brass monkey in the highlands, and like a sauna

bath down in the gorge."

He crossed to the board and began to check off the items on his list.

"We will both start malarial prophylactics immediately. We are going

into an area of chloroquineresistant . falciparum mosquitoes, so I will

put you on Mefloquine "He worked swiftly through the list.

"Of course all your travel documents are in order, or you wouldn't be

here. We will both need visas for Ethiopia, but I have a contact who can

arrange that in twenty-four hours."

As soon as he completed the list he sent her up to her room to pack the

few personal items she had brought with her from Cairo.

By the time they were ready to leave Quenton Hall it was dark outside,

but still he stopped for an hour at the York Minster Hospital to allow

her to say goodbye to her mother. He waited in the Red Lion pub across

the road, and he smelt of Theakston's Old Peculier when she climbed back

into the Range Rover beside him. It was a Pleasant, yeasty aroma, and

she felt so much at ease in his company that she lay back in the seat

and fell asleep.

His London house was in Knightsbridge, but despite the fashionable

address it was much less grand than Quenton Hall, and she felt IF more

at home there, even if it was only for two days.

During that time she saw little of Nicholas, for he was busy with all

the last-minute arrangements, which included a number of visits to

government offices in Whitehall. He returned with wads of letters -of

introduction to high officials and British Embassies and High

Commissions throughout East Africa.

"Ask any Englishman," she smiled to herself "There is no such thing as

upper-class privilege any longer, nor is there an old-boy network that

runs the country."

While he was away, she went off with the shopping list he had given her.

Even walking the streets of the safest Capital city in the world she

found herself looking back over her shoulder, and ducking in and out of

ladies' rooms and tube stations to make certain that she was not being

followed.

"You are acting like a terrified child without its daddy," she scolded

herself.

However, she felt a quite disproportionate sense of relief each evening

when she heard his key in the street door of the empty house where she

waited, and she had to control herself so as not to rush down the stairs

to welcome him.

On Saturday morning, when a taxi cab deposited them at the departures

level of Heathrow MNIJ Terminal Four, Nicholas surveyed their combined

luggage with approval. She had only a single soft canvas bag, no larger

than his, and her sling bag over her shoulder. His hunting rifle was

cased in travel-worn leather, with his initials embossed on the lid. A

hundred rounds of ammunition was packed in a separate brass'bound

magazine and he carried a leather briefcase that looked like a Victorian

antique.

"Travelling light is one of the great virtues. Lord save us from women

with mountains of luggage,5 he told her, refusing the services of a

porter and throwing it all on to a trolley, which he pushed himself.

She had to step out to keep up with him as he strode through the crowded

departures hall. Miraculously the throng opened before him. He tilted

the brim of his panama hat over one eye and grinned at the girl at the

check'in counter, so that she came over all girlish and flustered.

It was the same once they were aboard the aircraft.

The two stewardesses giggled at everything he said, plied him with

champagne and fussed over him outrageously, to the obvious irritation of

the other passengers, including Royan herself. But she ignored him and

them and settled back to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of the reclining

first-class seat and her own miniature video screen. She tried to

concentrate on the screen images of Richard Gere, but found her

attention wandering to other images of wild canyons and ancient stelae.

Only when Nicholas nudged her did she look around at him a little

haughtily. He had set up a tiny travelling chessboard on the arm of the

seat between them, and now he lifted an eyebrow at her and inclined his

head in invitation.

When they landed at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Kenya they were still

locked in combat. They were level at two games each, but she was a

bishop and two pawns up in the final deciding game. She felt quite

pleased with herself.

At the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi he had booked a pair of garden

bungalows, one for each of them. Within ten minutes of her flopping down

on the bed, he called her from next door on the house phone.

"We are going to dinner with the British High Commissioner tonight. He

is an old chum. Dress informal. Can you be ready at eight?"

One did not have to rough it too onerously when travelling around the

world in this man's company, she thought.

It was a relatively short haul from Nairobi up to Addis Ababa, and the

landscape below them unfolded in fascinating sequences that kept her

glued to the cabin window of the Air Kenya flight. The hoary summit of

Mount Kenya was for once free of cloud, and the snow-clad double peaks

glistened in the high sunlight.

The bleak brown deserts of the Northern Frontier District were relieved

only by the green hills that surrounded the oasis of Marsabit and, far

out on the port side, the dashing waters of Lake Turkana, formerly Lake

Rudolf.

The desert finally gave way to the highlands of the great central

plateau of the ancient land of Ethiopia.

"In Africa only the Egyptians go back further than this civilization,'

Nicholas remarked as they watched it together. "They were a cultured

race when we peoples of northern climes were still dressing in untanned

skins and living in caves. They were Christians when Europeans were

still pagans, worshipping the old gods, Pan and Diana."

"They were a civilized people when Taita passed this way nearly four

thousand years ago," she agreed. "In his Scrolls he writes of them as

almost his cultural equals which was rare for him. He disparaged all the

other nations of the old world as his inferiors in every way."

From the air Addis was like so many other African cities, a mixture of

the old and the new, of traditional and exotic architectural styles,

thatched roofs alongside galvanized iron and baked tiles. The rounded

walls of the old tukuls built with mud and wattle contrasted with the

rectangular shapes and geometrical planes of the brick built

multi-storeyed buildings, the blocks of flats and the villas of the

affluent, the government buildings and the grandiose, flag-bedecked

headquarters of the Organization of African Unity.

The distinguishing features of the surrounding countryside were the

plantations of tall eucalyptus trees, the ubiquitous blue gums that

provided firewood. It was the only fuel available to so many in this

poor and war-torn land, which over the centuries had been ravaged by

marauding armies and, more recently, by alien political doctrines.

After Nairobi the high-altitude air was cool and sweet when Royan and

Nicholas left the aircraft and walked across the tarmac to the terminal

building. As they entered, before they had even approached the row of

waiting immigration officers someone called his name.

"Sir Nicholas!" They both turned to the tall young woman who glided

towards them with all the grace of a features lit by a welcoming dancer,

her dark and delicate smile. She wore full'length tradition al skirts

which enhanced her movements.

"Welcome to my country of Ethiopia. I am Woizero Tessay." She looked at

Royan with interest, "And you must be Woizero Royan." She held out her

hand to her and liked each other Nicholas saw that the two women

immediately.

I will see to the "If you will let me have your passports. There is a

formalities while you relax in the VIP lounge.

from your British Embassy waiting there to greet you, man Sir Nicholas.

I don't know how he knew that you were arriving."

the VIP lounge.

There was only one person waiting i He was dressed in a well-cut

tropical suit and wore the orange, yellow and blue diagonally striped

old Sandhurst tie. He stood up and came to greet Nicholas immediately,

Nor, ? it's good to see you again Must be all

"Nicky, how are yo of twelve years, isn't it?"

"Hello, Geoffrey. I had no idea they had stuck you out here."

"Military attache. His Excellency sent me down to meet you as soon as he

heard that you and I had been at Sandhurst together." Geoffrey looked at

Royan with marked interest, and with a resigned air Nicholas introduced

them.

"Geoffrey Tennant. Be careful of him. Biggest ram I safe within half a

mile of north of the equator. No girl him."

"I say,. steady on,, Geoffrey protested, looking pleased with the

reference that Nicholas had given him. "Please don't believe a word the

man says, Dr Al Simma. Notorious prevaricator."

Geoffrey drew Nicholas aside and quickly gave him a r6sum6 of conditions

in the country, particularly in the outlying areas. "HE is a little

worried. He doesn't like the idea of you swarming around out there on

your own. Lots of nasty men down there in the Goiam. I told him that you

knew how to look after yourself.)

In a remarkably short time Woizero Tessay was back.

"I have cleared all your luggage, including the firearm and ammunition.

This is your temporary permit. You must keep it with you at all times

whilst you are in Ethiopia. Here are your passports - the visas are

stamped and in order. Our flight to Lake Tana leaves in an hour, so we

have plenty of time to check in."

"Any time you need a job, come and see me,'Nicholas commended her

efficiency.

Geoffrey Tennant walked with them as far as the departures gate, where

he shook hands, "Anything I can do, it goes without saying. "Serve to

Lead", Nicky."

"'Serve to lead"T Royan asked, as they walked out to the waiting

aircraft.

"Sandhurst's motto the explained.

"How nice, Nicky, she murmered.

"I have always considered Nicholas to be more dignified and

appropriate he said.

"Yes, but Nicky is so sweet."

the high, thin air the Twin Otter aircraft that took them on the last,

northern, leg pitched and yawed in the updraughts; from the mountains

below.

Although they were at fifteen thousand feet above sea level, the ground

was close enough for them to make out the, villages and the sparse areas

of cultivation around them. Subjected for so many centuries to primitive

agricultural methods and to the uncontrolled grazing of domestic herds,

the land had a thin, impoverished look, and the bones of rock showed

through the thin red fleshing of earth.

Abruptly ahead of them the plateau over which they were flying was rent

through by a monstrous chasm. It was as though the earth had received a

mighty sword-stroke that struck through to her very bowels.

"The Abbay river!" Tessay leaned forward in her seat to tap Royan's

shoulder.

The rim of the gorge was Clear-cut, and then the slope dropped away at

an angle of over thirty degrees. The bare plains of the plateau gave way

immediately to the heavily forested walls of the gorge. They could make

out the candelabra shapes of giant euphorbia rising above the dense

jungle. In places the walls had collapsed in scree slopes of loose rock,

and in others they were up-thrust into bluffs and needles that erosion

had sculpted with a monstrous artistry into the figures of towering

humanoids and other fantastic creatures of stone.

Down and down it plunged, and they winged out over the void until they

could look directly down, a mile and more, on to the glittering snake of

the river in the depths.

The funnel shape of the upper walls formed a secondary rim as they

reached the sheer cliffs of the sub-gorge five hundred feet above the

Nile water. Deep down there between its terrible cliffs the river gouged

dark pools and long slithering runs through the red sandstone. In places

the gorge was forty miles across, in others it narrowed to under ten,

but through all its length the grandeur and the desolation were infinite

and eternal. Man had made no impression upon it.

"You will soon be down there," Tessay told them in a voice so awed that

it was almost a whisper, and they were both silent. Words seemed

superfluous in the face of such raw and savage nature.

.. Almost with relief they watched the northern wall rise to meet them,

and the high mountains of the Choke range stood up against the tall blue

African sky, higher than their fragile little craft was flying.

The aircraft banked into its descent and Tessay pointed over the

starboard wingtip.

"Lake Tana," she told them. It was a wide and lovely body of water, over

fifty miles long, studded with islands on each of which stood a

monastery or an ancient church. As they dropped in over the water on the

final approach, they could make out the white-robed priests plying

between the islands on their traditional little boats made from bundles

of papyrus.

The Otter touched down on the dirt strip beside the lake and rolled out

in a long trailing cloud of dust. It swung in -and stopped engines

beside the run-down terminal building of thatch and daub.

The sunlight was so bright that Nicholas pulled a pair of sunglasses

from the breast pocket of his khaki jacket and placed them on his nose

as he stood at the top of the boarding ladder. He took in the pock-marks

of bullets and shrapnel on the dirty white walls of the terminal, and

the burnt'out hull of a Russian T35 battle tank standing in the grass on

the verge of the runway. The' barrel of its turret gun pointed

earthwards, and grass had grown up between the rusted tracks.

The other passengers pushed forward impatiently behind him, jostling him

and jabbering with excitement as they saw friends and relatives waiting

to greet them under the eucalyptus trees that shaded the building. There

was only one vehicle parked out there, a sand-coloured Toyota Land

Cruiser. The roundel on the driver's do6r had at its centre the painted

head of a mountain nyala, with long corkscrew horns, and in a ribbon

below it the title "Wild Chase Safaris'. A white man lounged behind the

wheel.

As Nicholas came down the ladder behind the two women, the driver

slipped out of the truck and strode out on to the strip to meet them. He

was dressed in a faded khaki bush suit, and he was tall and lean and

walked with a spring to his step.

"Fortyish," Nicholas judged his age from the grizzling in his short

beard. "One of the hard men," Nicholas thought.

His ginger hair was cropped short, his eyes were pale killer blue. There

was a puckered white scar that ran across one cheek and up to twist and

deform his nose.

Tessay introduced `Royan to him first, and he made a short, choppy bow

as he shook her hand. "Enchant6, he told her in an execrable French

accent and then looked at Nicholas.

"This is my husband, Alto Boris," Tessay introduced him. "Boris, this is

Alto Nicholas."

"My English is bad," Boris said. "My French is better."

"Not much to choose between them," Nicholas thought, but he smiled

easily and said, "So we will speak French then. Bonjour, Monsieur

Brusilov. I am delighted to make your acquaintance." He offered the

Russian his hand.

Boris's grip was hard - too hard. He was making a contest out of the

greeting, but Nicholas had expected it He knew this type of old, and he

had taken a deep grip so Boris could not crush his fingers. Nicholas

held him without allowing any strain or effort to show on his lazy

smile. Boris was the first to break the handshake, and there was just

the trace of respect in those pale eyes.

"So you have come for a dikdik?" he asked, just short of a sneer. Most

of my clients come for big elephant, or at least for mountain nyala."

"Bit rich for my nerves," Nicholas grinned, "all that big stuff. Dik-dik

will suit me fine."

"Have you ever been down in the gorge?" Boris demanded. His Russian

accent overpowered the French words and made them difficult to follow.

"Sir Nicholas was one of the leaders of the 1976 river expedition,'

Royan intervened sweetly, and Nicholas was amused by her unexpected

intervention. She had picked up the antagonism between them very

quickly, and come to his rescue.

Boris grunted, and turned to his wife. "Have you got all the stores I

ordered?" he demanded.

"Yes, Boris," she answered meekly. "They are all on board the aircraft."

She is afraid of him, Nicholas decided, probably with good reason.

"Let's get loaded up, then. We have a long journey ahead of us."

The two men rode in the front seats of the Toyota, and the women sat

behind them with many of the packages of stores packed in around them.

Good African protocol, Nicholas smiled to himself: men first, women fend

for themselves.

"You don't want to do the tourist run, do you?" Boris made it sound like

a threat.

"The tourist run?"

"The outlet from the lake, and the power station," he explained. "The

Portuguese bridge over the gorge and the point where the Blue Nile

begins," he added. But before they could accept he warned them, "If you

do, we won't get into camp until long -after dark."

"Thanks for the suggestion,) Nicholas told him politely, "but I have

seen it all before."

"Good." Boris made his approval evident. "Let's get out of here."

The road swung away into the west, below the high mountains. This was

the Goiam, the land of the aloof mountaineers. It was well-populated

country, and they passed many tall, thin men along the roadside as they

strode along behind their herds of goats and sheep, with their long

staffs held crossways over their shoulders. Both men and women wore

shammas, woollen shawls, and baggy white jodhpur pants, with their feet

in open sandals.

They were people with proud and handsome features, their hair dressed

out into thick, bushy halos, and their eyes fierce as those of eagles.

Some of the younger women in the villages they passed through were truly

beautiful.

Most of the men were heavily armed. They carried twohanded swords in

chased silver scabbards, and AK-47 assault rifles.

"Makes them feel like big men," Boris chuckled. "Very brave, very

macho."

The huts in the villages were circular walled tukuls, surrounded by

plantations of eucalyptus and spiky-headed sisal.

Bruised purple storm clouds boiled over the high peaks of the Choke and

swept them with squalls of rain. Like silver coins, the huge drops

rattled against the windscreen of the Land Cruiser and turned the road

to a running river of mud under their wheels.

The condition of the road surface was appalling; in places it

deteriorated into a rocky gully which even the four-wheel drive Toyota

could not negotiate, and Boris was forced to make his own track across

the rocky hillside.

Often reduced to walking speed, they were nevertheless tossed about in

their seats as the wheels bounced over the rough terrain.

"These damn blacks don't even think to repair the roads," Boris grunted.

"They are happy to live like animals." None of them replied, but

Nicholas glanced up into the rear-view mirror at the faces of the two

women. They were closed and neutral, hiding any hurt that either of them

might have felt at the remark.

As they went on, the road, bad as it had been originally, became even

worse. From here onwards the soft the fire. The two women sat a little

to one side, talking quietly, and Boris had his feet propped on the low

table as he leaned back in his chair with a glass in one hand.

He indicated the vodka bottle on the table, as Nicholas stepped into the

circle of firelight, "Get yourself a drink Ice in the bucket."

"I prefer a beer," Nicholas told him. "Thirsty drive." Boris shrugged

and bellowed for his camp butler to bring a brown bottle from the

portable gas refrigerator.

"Let me tell you something, a little secret." He grinned at Nicholas as

he poured himself another vodka. "There is no such animal as a striped

dik-dik these days, even if there ever was one. You are wasting your

time and your money."

"Fine," Nicholas agreed mildly. "It's my time and my money."

"Just because some old fart shot one back in the Dark Ages, doesn't mean

you are going to find another now. We could go up into the tea

plantations for elephant. I saw three bulls there only ten days ago. All

with tusks over a hundred pounds a side."

As they argued, the level in Boris's vodka bottle fell like the Nile at

the end of the inundation. When Tessay told them that the meal was

ready, Boris carried the bottle with him; he stumbled on his way to the

table. During the meal his only contribution to the conversation was to

snarl at Tessay.

"The lamb is raw. Why don't you see to it that the cook does it

properly? Damn monkeys, you have to watch everything they do."

"Is your lamb under-cooked, Alto Nicholas?" Tessay asked without looking

at her husband. "I can have them cook it longer."

"It's perfect he assured her. "I like mine pink."

Si By the end of dinner the vodka bottle at Boris elbow was empty, and

his face was flushed and swollen. He got up from the table without a

word and disappeared into the darkness in the direction of his tent,

swaying on his feet and occasionally catching his balance with a

two-step jig.

"I apologize," essay told them quietly. "It is only in the evenings. In

the day he is fine. It is a Russian tradition, the vodka." She smiled

brightly; only her eyes stayed sad.

"It is a lovely night, and too early yet for bed. Would you like to walk

up to the church? It is very old and famous.

I will have one of the servants bring a lantern, so that you may admire

the murals."

The servant walked ahead of them, lighting their way, and an ancient

priest waited to welcome them on the portico of the circular building.

He was thin and so very black that only his teeth flashed in the gloom.

He carried a magnificent Coptic cross in massive native silver, set with

carnelians and other semi-precious stones.

Both Royan and Tessay dropped on their knees in front of him to ask for

his blessing. He slapped their cheeks lightly with the cross and

genuflected over them, mumbling his benediction in Amharic. Then he

ushered them into the interior.

The walls were covered with a magnificent display of paintings in

brilliant primary colours. In the lantern light they blazed like

gemstones. There was a strong Byzantine flavour to the style: the

saints' eyes were huge and slanted, with great golden halos over their

heads. Above the altar, with its tinsel and brass furnishing, the Virgin

cradled her infant while the three wise men and a host of angels knelt

in adoration. Nicholas slipped his Polaroid camera from the pocket of

his jacket and adjusted the flash. He wandered around the church

photographing these murals, while Tessay and Royan knelt before the

altar side by side.

Once he had finished his photography Nicholas found a seat on the

hand-hewn wooden pews and sat quietly watching their intent faces which

the candlelight touched with golden highlights, and he was moved by the

beauty of the moment.

"I wish I had that kind of faith," he thought, as he had so often

before. "It must be a comfort in the hard times. I wish I were able to

pray like that for Rosalind and the girls." He could not stay longer,

and he went out and sat on the church portico where he watched the night

sky.

In these high altitudes, in the thin unpolluted air, the stars were such

a dazzling blaze that it was difficult to pick out the individual

constellations. After a while his sadness abated. It was good to be back

in Africa.

When the two women emerged at last from the dark interior, Nicholas gave

the old priest a one hundred birr note and a Polaroid photograph of

himself which the old man clearly valued above the money. Then the three

of them walked back down the hill together in companionable silence.

icky!" Royan shook him awake. When he sat up and switched on his torch,

he saw that she had thrown the woollen shawl over a pair of men's

striped pyjamas before she had come into his tent.

"What is it?" he asked, but before she could answer he heard the sound

of a hoarse and angry voice shouting invective in the night, and then

the unmistakable thud of a clenched fist striking flesh and bone.

"He's beating her." Royan's voice was tight with out-' rage. "You have

to make him stop."

There was a cry of pain after the blow, and then sobs.

Nicholas hesitated. Only a fool interferes between a man and his wife,

and his reward usually is to have them unite and turn savagely upon him.

"You must do something, Nicky, please., Reluctantly he swung his legs

out of the cot and stood up. He slept in'boxer shorts, and he did not

bother to find his shoes. She followed him, also on bare feet, to the

end of the grove where Boris's tent stood beyond the dining tent.

There was a lantern still burning within, and it threw magnified shadows

on the canvas walls. He saw that Boris had his wife "by the hair and was

dragging her across the floor, roaring at her in Russian.

"Boris!" Nicholas had to shout his name three times to get his

attention, and then they saw the shadow play on the canvas as he dropped

Tessay and flung open the tent flap.

He was dressed only in a pair of underpants. His torso was lean and

muscular, the chest flat and hard-looking, covered with coppery curls.

On the floor behind him Tessay lay face down, sobbing into her cupped

hands. She was naked, and the planes of her body were sleek as those of

a panther.

"What the hell is going on here?" Nicholas demanded, his anger only just

beginning to stir as he witnessed the gracious, gentle woman's distress

and humiliation.

"I am giving this black whore a lesson in good manners," Boris gloated,

his face still swollen and flushed with drink and passion. "It's none of

your business, English, unless you want to pay some money and have a bit

of pork for yourself." He laughed, an ugly sound.

"Are you all right, Woizero Tessay?" Nicholas looked directly into

Boris's face, sparing the woman the further humiliation of another man's

eyes on her nudity.

Tessay sat up, lifted her knees against her chest, and hugged them with

both arms to cover her body.

"It's all right, Alto Nicholas. Please go away before there is real

trouble." Blood was trickling from one nostril into her mouth, and

dyeing her teeth pink.

"You heard'my wife, English bastard. Go away! Mind your own business. Go

away, before I give you a little lesson in good manners also."

Boris staggered forward and thrust his open hand against Nicholas's

chest. Nicholas moved as smoothly and as effortlessly as a matador

avoiding the first wild charge of the bull. He swayed to one side, and

used Boris's own momentum to send him on in the direction in which he

was already committed. Completely off balance, the Russian reeled across

the open ground in front of the tent until he collided with one of the

camp chairs and went down in a sprawling heap.

"Royan, take Tessay to your tent!" he ordered softly.

Royan ran into the tent and pulled a sheet from the nearest cot. She

spread it over Tessay's shoulders and lifted her to her feet.

"Please, don't do this," Tessay sobbed. "You don't know him when he gets

like this. He will hurt somebody."

Royan dragged her, still protesting and weeping, out of the tent, but by

now Boris was on his feet again. He bellowed with rage and picked up the

camp chair that had tripped him. With a single jerk he tore off one of

the legs and hefted it in his bunched fist.

"You want to play games, English? All right, we play!" He rushed at

Nicholas, swinging the chair leg like a Ninja baton, so that it hissed

with the force with which he aimed it at his head. As Nicholas ducked

under it Boris reversed the swing, going for the side of his chest,

under his upraised arm. It would have staved in his ribs if it had

landed, but again Nicholas twisted away.

They circled each other warily, and then Boris charged again. If it had

not been for the effect of the vodka on the Russian's reflexes Nicholas

would never have taken a chance with an adversary of this calibre, but

Boris was just loose enough in his control to allow him to duck in under

the swinging chair leg. He straightened, with all his weight rolling

into the punch, and his fist slogged into the pit Of Boris's belly just

under the sternum. The Russian's breath was driven out of him in a great

gusty belch.

The chair leg flew from his grip, and he doubled over and collapsed.

Clasping his middle, and heaving and wheezing for breath, Boris lay

curled in the dust. Nicholas stooped over him and told him softly in

English, "This sort of behaviour simply isn't good enough, old chap. We

don't bully-girls. Please don't let it happen again."

He straightened up and spoke to Royan, "Get her to your tent and keep

her there." He combed his hair back from his face with his fingers. "And

now, if you have no serious objections, may we get a little sleep?"

It rained again during the early hours. The heavy drops drummed down on

the canvas and the lightning lit the interior of the tents with an eerie

brilliance. However, by the time that Nicholas went through to the

dining tent for breakfast the next morning, the clouds had cleared and

the sunshine was bright and cheering. The sweet mountain air smelt of

wet earth and mushrooms.

Boris greeted Nicholas with hearty good fellowship.

"Good morning, English. We had some fun last night. I still laugh to

remember it. Very good jokes. One day soon we will have some more vodka,

then we will makesome more good jokes." And he bellowed through to the

kitchen tent, "Hey! Lady Sun, bring your new boyfriend something to eat.

He is hungry from all the sport last night."

Tessay was quiet and withdrawn as she supervised the' servants handing

round breakfast. One eye was swollen almost closed, and her lip was cut.

She did not look at Nicholas once during the meal.

"We will go on ahead," Boris explained jovially as they drank coffee.

"My servants will break camp, and follow us in my big truck. With luck,

we will be able to camp tonight on the rim above the gorge, and tomorrow

we will begin the descent."

As they were climbing into the truck, Tessay was able to speak to him

softly for a moment, without danger of Boris overhearing her. "Thank

you, Alto Nicholas. But it was not wise. You don't know him. You must be

careful now. He does not forget, not does he forgive."

From the village of Debra Maryarn Boris took a branch road that ran

alongside the Dandera river directly south, wards. The road they had

followed the previous day from Lake Tana was shown on the map as a major

highway. It had been bad enough. But this track that they were now on

was marked as a secondary road "not passable in all weather'. To

compound matters, it seemed that most of the heavy traffic that had torn

up the main road had followed this same track. They came to a place

where some huge vehicle had become bogged down in the rain-saturated

earth, and the efforts to free it had left areas of ploughed land and an

excavation like a bomb crater that resembled an old photograph of the

battlefields of First World War Flanders.

Twice during the day the Toyota too became stuck in this foul ground.

Each time this happened, the big truck that was following them came up

and all the servants swarmed down from the cargo body to push and heave

the Toyota through. Even Nicholas stripped to the waist to work with

them in the mud to free it.

"If you had only listened to my advice," Boris grumbled, "we would not

be here. There is no game where you want to go, and there are no roads

worth the name either."

In the early afternoon they stopped beside the river for an alfresco

lunch. Nicholas went down to the pool beside the road to wash off the

mud and filth of the morning's labours. He had been in the forefront of

the efforts to keep the truck moving. Royan followed him down the slope

and perched on a rock above the pool while he stripped off his shirt and

knelt, at the verge to splash himself with the cold mountain water. The

river was muddy yellow and swollen from the rainstorms.

"I don't think Boris believes your story about the striped dik-dik," she

warned him. "Tessay tells me that he is suspicious of what we are up

to." She watched with interest as he sluiced his chest and upper arms.

'"ere the sun had not touched it, his skin was very white and

unblemished.

His chest hair was thick and dark. She decided that his body was good to

look at.

"He is the type that would go through our luggage if he gets a chance,'

Nicholas agreed. "You didn't bring anything with you that has any clues

for him? No papers or notes?"

"Only the satellite photograph, and my notebooks are all in my own

shorthand. He won't be able to make anything of them."

"Be very careful of what you discuss with Tessay."

"She is a dear. There is nothing underhand about her." Heatedly Royan

came to the defence of her new friend.

"She may be all right, but she's married to my chum Boris. Her first

allegiance lies there. No matter what your feelings towards her, don't

trust either of them." He dried himself on his shirt, slipped it on and

then buttoned it over his chest. "Let's go and get something to eat."

Back at the parked truck Boris was pulling the cork from a bottle of

South African white wine. He poured a tumbler full for Nicholas. Chilled

in the river, it was crisp and fruity. Tessay offered them cold roast

chicken and injera bread, the flat, thin sheets of stone-ground

unleavened bread of the country. The trials and labours of the morning's

travels faded into insignificance as Royan lay beside Nicholas in the

grass and they watched a bearded vulture sailing high against the blue.

It saw them and drifted overhead curiously, twisting its head to look

down at them. Its eyes were masked in black like those of a highwayman,

and the distinctive wedge-shaped tail feathers flirted with the wind the

way the fingers of a concert pianist would stroke the ivories of the

keyboard.

When it was time to go on, Nicholas gave her his hand to lift her to her

feet. It was one of their rare moments of physical contact, and she held

on to his fingers for just a second or two longer than was strictly

necessary.

There was no improvement in the surface of the trac as they drew nearer

to the rim of the gorge, and the hours passed in this bone-jarring,

teeth-rattling progress. The track snaked over a rise and then

dog-legged down the far slope. Halfway down Boris swore in Russian as

they came round the hairpin bend of a high earthen bank to find a huge

diesel truck slewed across the track, almost blocking it.

Even though they had been following the tracks of this convoy of

vehicles since the previous day, this was the first of them that they

had encountered, and it took Boris by surprise. He hit his brakes so

suddenly that his passengers were almost catapulted from their seats,

but on the steep incline in the mud the brakes did not bring them to a

complete halt. Boris was forced to change down into his lowest gear and

steer for the narrow gap between the bank and the truck.

From the back seat Royan looked out of the window I beside her, up the

high side of the diesel truck. There was a company name and logo

emblazoned in scarlet on the green background.

A strong feeling of du vu overcame her as she stared at the image. She

had seen this sign recently, but her memory cheated her: she could not

recall the time or the place. She only knew that it was of vital

importance that she should remember.

The side of the Toyota scraped against the metal of the truck, and then

they were past it. Boris leaned out of his window and shook his fist at

the driver of the larger vehicle.

He was a local man, probably recruited in Addis by the owner of the

truck. Grinning at Boris's antics, he leaned out of his own cab to

return the clenched fist salute, adding a nice little touch by jerking a

raised forefinger upwards.

"Dungeater!" Boris roared with outrage at being bested in the exchange,

but he did not stop. "No use even talking to them. What do they know?

Black chimps!'

For the rest of the wearisome journey Royan remained silent and

withdrawn, shaken and troubled by the conviction that she had seen the

trademark of the winged red horse before, with, set above it in a

pennant, the name of the company: "PEGASUS EXPLORATION'.

As they approached the end of the day's journey at last they passed a

signpost beside the track. The supporting legs of the sign were solidly

set in concrete, and the artwork was of such high quality that it could

only have been that of a professional signwriter.

Across the top of the board an arrow indicated a newly bulldozed road

that headed off to the right, and the directions read:

PEGASUS EXPLORATION

BASE CAMP - ONE KILOMETRE

PRIVATE ROAD

NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORIZED TRAFFIC

The scarlet horse reared in the centre of the board with its wings

spread wide, on the point of flight.

Now she gasped aloud as the elusive memory came upon her with stunning

clarity. She remembered where she had last seen the flying red horse. In

an instant she was transported back into the icy waters of an English

salmon river, flung from the rolling body of the Land Rover, the huge

MAN truck roaring over the bridge above her, and, for a subliminal pulse

of time, the prancing red horse upon its side.

she almost shouted aloud, but controlled herself. The terror of the

moment returned to her with full force, and she found herself breathing

hard and her heart racing as though she had run a long way.

"It cannot be a coincidence," she assured herself silently, "and I am

not mistaken. It is the same company.

Pegasus Exploration."

She was withdrawn and distracted for the last few miles of the journey,

until the track they were following ended abruptly on the brink of the

sheer cliffs of the escarpment, Here Boris pulled on to the grassy verge

and stopped the engine.

"This is as far as we ride. We camp here tonight. My big truck is not

far behind. They will make camp as so on as they arrive. Tomorrow we

will go down into the gorge on foot."

As they dismounted, Royan tugged at Nicholas's arm, "I must speak to

you," she whispered urgently, and she followed him as he led her along

the bank of the river.

He found a place for them to sit side by side, with their legs dangling

over the drop. Beside them the swollen yellow river seemed to sense what

lay ahead of it. The cold mountain waters speeded up, swirled amongst

the rocks, and gathered themselves for that dizzying leap out into empty

space. The cliff below them was a sheer wall of rock almost a thousand

feet deep. It was so high that in the evening light the abyss far below

was a dark, mysterious place, its bottom hidden from them by shadow and

spray from the falls. As Royan looked down into it her sense of balance

swirled with vertigo. She cringed back from the edge and found herself

instinctively leaning against Nicholas's shoulder to steady herself.

Only when they touched did she realize what she was doing, and she

pulled away from him self-consciously.

The muddied waters of the Dandera. river leaped from the brink, and were

miraculously transformed into curtains of ethereal lacework as they

fell. Like the skirts of waltzing bride they shimmered and swirled, and

rainbows of light played through them as though from an embroidery of

seed pearls. Still falling, the columns of white spray twisted and

changed into lovely but ephemeral shapes, until they struck the lower

ledges of glistening black rock and exploded outwards into fresh clouds

of white that at last screened the dark depths of the abyss with " an

opalescent veil.

It was with a conscious effort that Royan pulled her mind away from the

awe-inspiring scene and back to the troubled present.

"Nicky, do you remember I told you about the truck that forced my mother

and me over the bridge in the Land Rover?"

"Of course." His expression was mystified as he studied her face. "You

are upset. "What is it, Royan?"

"The truck had signwriting down the sides of the trailers that it was

towing."

"You told me, yes. Green and red. You told me that you didn't get a good

enough look to read the sign."

"It was the same as the truck we passed this afternoon.

I saw the sign at the same angle as before and it came back to me. The

red Pegasus, the flying horse."

He studied her face for a while, "Are you absolutely certain?"

"Absolutely!" She nodded vehemently.

Nicholas stared out over the magnificent panorama of the gorge spread

below them. It was forty miles to the far wall of the canyon, but in the

brilliant rain-washed air it seemed so close that he could reach across

and touch it.

"A coincidence?"he wondered at last.

"Do you think so? A very strange and wonderful coincidence, then.

Pegasus in both Yorkshire and Gojam?

Do you accept that?"

"It doesn't make sense. The truck that hit you was stolen-'

"Was it?" she demanded. "Are we sure of that?"

"If it wasn't, then let's hear your ideas."

"If you were planning an assassination, would you rely on stealing a

truck conveniently left at a Little Chef for you?"

He shook his head, "Go on."

"Suppose you arranged for your own truck to be placed there for you, and

for your driver to report it stolen only after you had a good head start

on the police."

"It's possible," he agreed without enthusiasm.

"Whoever murdered Duraid, and made two further attempts to kill me,

obviously has considerable resources at his disposal. He is able to make

arrangements in Egypt and England. On top of that, he has the seventh

scroll in his possession. He has our notes and all our workings and

translations which point him clearly to this spot on the Abbay river.

Just suppose that he has control of a company like Pegasus - is there

any reason why he can't be here in Ethiopia, just as we are, right at

this moment?"

Nicholas was silent for a while. He picked up a stone from the ledge

beside him and tossed it out over the cliff.

They both watched it drop away, dwindling in size until it vanished in

the veils of spray far below where they sat.

Abruptly Nicholas stood up and reached for her hand to pull her to her

feet beside him. "Come on," he said.

"Where are we going?"

"Pegasus base camp. Let's go and have a chat to the site foreman."

Boris protested angrily and hurried to intervene when Nicholas climbed

into the Toyota and started the engine, "Where the hell do you think you

are going?, "Sight-seeing." Nicholas let in the clutch. "Back in an

hour."

"Hey, English, my truck!" He ran to catch up with them, but Nicholas

accelerated away.

"Charge me for the hire." fie grinned back at Boris in the rear-view

mirror. -off and followed the They reached the signposted turn side

track over the ridge. The Pegasus camp lay on the far side. Nicholas

braked to a halt on the crest of the rise and they studied it in

silence.

An area of about ten acres had been cleared and levelled. It was

surrounded by a barbed-wire security fence, with a single closed gate.

Three of the massive diesel trucks in their green and red livery were

parked in a rank inside the fence. There were also several smaller

vehicles and a tall mobile drilling rig in the line. The rest of the

yard was filled with prospecting equipment and stores. There were stacks

of drilling rods and steel core boxes, wooden crates of spares, and

several hundred forty-four-gallon drums of diesel and oil and drilling

mud. The drums and the stores were stacked with a neatness and sense of

good order that was startling in this wild and rocky landscape. just

inside the gate stood a small village of a dozen buildings made of

corrugated sheet sections, of the Quonset type. They too were set out in

a street of military precision.

"A big, well-organized outfit," Nicholas commented.

"Let's go down and see who is in charge."

There were two armed guards on the gate, dressed in the camouflage

uniform of the Ethiopian army. They were clearly surprised by the

arrival at the gate of the strange Land Cruiser, and when Nicholas

sounded his horn one of them came forward suspiciously with his AK,47

rifle at the ready.

"I want to speak to the manager here," Nicholas told him in Arabic, with

enough haughty authority to make the entry uncertain and uneasy.

The soldier grunted, went back and consulted his colleague, then lifted

the handset of the two-way radio and spoke earnestly into the

mouthpiece. There was a five minute delay after he finished speaking,

and then the door of the nearest Quonset building opened and a white man

came out.

He was dressed in khaki coveralls and a soft bush cap.

His eyes, covered by mirrored sunglasses, were set in a deeply tanned,

leathery face. His physique was short and chunky, and his sleeves were

rolled up over hairy, work thickened arms. After speaking a few words to

the guards at the gate he came out to the Toyota

"Yeah? What's going down here?" he demanded in Texan drawl, speaking

around the stub of an unlit cigar.

"The name is Quenton-Harper." Nicholas dismounted from the truck to

greet him, and held out his hand.

"Nicholas Quenton-Harper. How do you do?"

The American hesitated, and then took the hand as though he had been

offered an electric eel to squeeze.

"Helm," he said. "Jake Helm, from Abilene, Texas. I am the foreman

here." His hand was that of an artisan, with calloused palms and lumpy

scar tissue over the knuckles, and half moons of black grease under the

fingernails.

"Terribly sorry to worry you. I am having some trouble with my truck. I

wondered if you had a mechanic who could have a look at it for

me."Nicholas smiled winningly, but received no encouragement from the

man.

"Not company policy." He shook his head.

"I am prepared to pay for any-'

"Listen, buddy, I said no." Jake removed the cigar from his mouth and

examined it minutely.

"Your company - Pegasus. Can you tell me where your head office is

situated? Who is your managing director?"

"I am a busy man. You are wasting my time." Helm ,,returned the cigar to

his mouth and began to turn away.

"I will be hunting in this area over the next few weeks.

I would not like to endanger any of your employees with a stray shot.

Can you give me some idea of where you will be working?"

outfit here, mister. I don't

"I am running a prospecting give out news flashes on my movements. Beat

id'

He turned and walked to the gate and gave brusque orders to the guards

before marching back to his office building.

"Satellite disc on the roof," Nicholas remarked. "I wonder who our lad

Jake is speaking to at this very moment."

"Somebody in Texas?" Royan hazarded.

"Doesn't follow, necessarily, Nicholas demurred. Tega, is probably a

multinational. Just because Jake is one, doesn't mean his boss is Texan

also. Not a very instructive conversation, I am afraid." He started the

engine and Uturned the Toyota. "But if someone at Pegasus is the ugly

mixed up in this, he will recognize my name. We have given them notice

of our arrival. Let's see what we have flushed out of the bushes."

When they got back to the Dandera river falls, they found that Boris's

truck had arrived, the tents had been erected, and the chef had brewed

tea for them. Boris was less welcoming than his chef, and maintained a

sullen silence while Nicholas tried to placate him for commandeering his

truck.

It was only after his first vodka of the evening that he mellowed

sufficiently to speak again.

"The mules were supposed to be waiting for us here.

Time means nothing to these people. We cannot start down into the gorge

until they arrive."

"Well, at least while we are waiting for them I will have a chance to

sight in my rifle,'Nicholas remarked with resignation. "In Africa it

never pays to be in a hurry. Too wearing on the nerves."

After a leisurely breakfast the next morning, when there was still no

sign of the mules, Nicholas fetched his rifle case.

When Nicholas lifted the weapon out of its nest of green baize, Boris

took it from him and examined it minutely.

"An old rifle?"

"Made in 1926,'Nicholas nodded. "My grandfather had it made for

himself."

"They knew how to make them in those days. Not like the mass-produced

crap they turn out today." Boris pursed his lips critically. "Short

Mauser Oberndorf double square, bridge action, beautiful! But it has

been rebarrelled, no?

The original barrel was shot out. I had it replaced with a Shilen match

barrel. It will shoot the wings off a mosquito at a hundred paces."

"Calibre 7 57, is it?" Boris asked.

'275 Rigby, as a matter of fact," Nicholas corrected him, but Boris

snorted.

"It is exactly the same cartridge - just your English bloodiness must

call it something else." He grinned. "It wilt push a 150 grain bullet

out there at 2800 feet per second.

It is a good rifle, one of the best."

"You will never know, my dear fellow, how much your approval means to

me,'Nicholas murmured in English, and Boris chuckled as he handed the

rifle back to him.

"English jokes! I love your English jokes."

When Nicholas left camp carrying the little rifle in its slip case,

Royan followed him down to the river and helped him fill two small

canvas bags with white river sand. He laid them on top of a convenient

rock and they formed a firm but malleable rest for the rifle as he

settled it over them.

Using the open hillside as a safe back'stop, he "stepped out two hundred

yards and at that range set up a cardboard carton on which he had taped

a Bisley'type target. He came back to where Royan waited and then

settled down behind the rock on which the weapon lay.

Royan was unprepared for the report of the first shot from the dainty,

almost feminine-looking rifle. She jumped involuntarily, and her ears

sang.

"What a horrible, vicious thing!" she exclaimed. "How can you bring

yourself to kill lovely animals with a highpowered gun like that?" she

demanded.

"Rifle," he corrected her, as he noted the strike of the shot through

his binoculars. "Would it make you feel better if I used a low-powered

rifle, or beat them to death with a stick?"

The shot had struck three inches right and two inches low. As he

adjusted the telescopic sight he attempted to explain. "An ethical

hunter does everything in his power to kill as swiftly and as cleanly as

is possible, and that means stalking in as close as he is able to do,

using a weapon of adequate power and sighting it the best way he knows

how."

His next shot struck exactly on line but only an inch above the

bull's-eye. He wanted it to shoot three inches high at that range. He

worked on the sight again.

"Gun or rifle, but I don't understand why you would want to deliberately

kill any of God's creatures," she protested.

"That I can never explain to you." He aimed deliberately and fired once.

Even through the lower magnification of the sight lens he could see that

the bullet had struck exactly three inches high.

"It is something to do with an atavistic urge that few men, no matter

how Cultured and civilized they deem themselves, can deny completely."

He fired a second time.

"Some of them work it out in the board room, others on the golf course

or the tennis court, and some of us on a salmon river, in the ocean

deeps or in the hunting field."

He fired a third shot, merely to confirm the previous two, and then went

on, "As for God's creatures, he gave them to us. You are the believer.

Quote me Acts 10, verses 12 and 13."

"Sorry." She shook her head. "You tell me.

... all manner Of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and

creeping things, and fowL of the air,"'

Nicholas obliged her. "'And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter;

kill, and eat., "You should have been a lawyer," she moaned in mock

despair.

"Or a priest," he suggested, and went forward to retrieve the target. He

found that his last three shots had punched a tiny symmetrical rosette

three inches above the bull, all three bullet holes just touching each

other.

He patted the butt stock of the little rifle, "That's my lovely darling,

Lucrezia Borgia." He had named the rifle for her beauty and for her

murderous potential.

He slid the rifle back into its leather slip case and they walked back

together. As they came in sight of the camp, Nicholas pulled up short.

"Visitors," he said, and raised his binoculars. "Aha! We have flushed

something out of the undergrowth. That is a Pegasus truck parked there

and, unless I am much mistaken, one of our visitors is the charming

laddie from Abilene.

Let's go down and find out what is going on."

As they drew closer to camp, they realized that there were a dozen or

more heavily armed, uniformed soldiers clustered around the red and

green Pegasus truck, and that Jake Helm and an Ethiopian army officer

were seated under the awning of the dining tent in serious and intent

conversation with Boris, A

s soon as Nicholas entered the tent, Boris introduced him to the

bespectacled Ethiopian officer. "This is Colonel Tuma Nogo, the military

commander of the southern Goiam region."

"How do you do?" Nicholas greeted him, but the colonel ignored the

pleasantry.

"I want to see your passport, and your firearms licence, he ordered

arrogantly, while Jake Helm chewed complacently on the evil-smelling

butt of an extinguished cigar.

"Yes, of course," Nicholas agreed, and went to his own tent to fetch his

briefcase. He opened it on the dining table, and smiled at the officer.

"I am sure you will also want to see my letter of introduction from the

British Foreign Secretary in London, and this one from the British

Ambassador in Addis Ababa. Here is another from the Ethiopian Ambassador

to the Court of St. James, and this is from your own Minister of

Defence, General Abraha."

The colonel stared in consternation at this fruit salad of ornate

official letterheads and scarlet beribboned seals.

Behind the gold-rimmed glasses his eyes were bemused and confused.

"Sir!" He jumped to his feet and saluted. "You are a friend of General

Abraha? I did not know. Nobody informed me. I beg your pardon for this

intrusion."

He saluted again, and his embarrassment made him awkward and ungainly.

"I came to warn you only that the Pegasus Company is conducting drilling

and blasting operations. There may be some danger. Please be alert. Also

there are many bandits and outlaws, shufta, operating in this area."

Colonel Nogo was flustered and barely coherent.

He stopped and drew a deep breath to steady himself. "You see, I have

been ordered to provide an escort for the employees of the Pegasus

Company. If you yourself experience any trouble while you are here, or

if you need assistance for any reason you have only to call on me, sir."

"That is extremely civil of you, colonel."

"I will detain you no longer, sir." He saluted a third time and backed

off towards the Pegasus truck, taking the Texan foreman along with him.

Jake Helm'had not uttered a word since their arrival, and now he left

without a farewell.

Colonel Nogo gave Nicholas his fourth and final salute through the cab

window as the truck pulled away.

Deuce!" Nicholas told Royan, as he acknowledged the salute with a

nonchalant wave. "I think that point was definitely ours. Now at least

we know that, for whatever reason, Mr Pegasus definitely does not want

us in his hair. I think we can expect his next service fairly promptly.,

They walked back to where Boris sat in the dining tent and Nicholas told

him, "All we need now are your mules."

"I have sent three of my men to the village to find them. They should

have been here yesterday." The mules arrived early the next morning, six

big sturdy animals, each accompanied by a driver dressed in the

ubiquitous-jodhpurs and shawl. By midmorning they were loaded and ready

to begin the descent into the gorge.

Boris paused at the head of the pathway, and looked out over that

valley. For once even he -seemed to be subdued and awed by the immensity

of the drop and the rugged splendour of the gorge.

"You will be Passing into another land in another age," he warned them

in an uncharacteristically philosophical mood. "They say that this trail

is two thousand years old, as old as Christ." He spread his hands in a

deprecating gesture.

"The old black priest in the church at Debra Maryam will tell you that

the Virgin Mary passed this way when she fled from Israel after the

crucifixion." He shook his head. "But then these people will believe

anything." And he "stepped out on to the pathway.

It clung to the cliff, descending at such an angle that each pace was

down a rock step so deep that it stretched the-tendons and the sinews in

their groins and knees, and jarred their spines. They were forced to use

their hands to scramble the rougher and steeper sections, where it was

almost as though they were descending a ladder.

It seemed impossible that the mules under their heavy packs could follow

them down. The plucky beasts lunged down each of the rock steps, landing

heavily on their forelegs, then gathered themselves for the next drop.

The trail was so narrow that the bulky packs scraped against the rock

wall on one hand, while on the other hand the drop sucked at them

giddily.

When the path dog-legged and changed direction, the mules could not make

the turn in one attempt. They were forced to back and fill, edging their

way round the narrow trail, sweating with terror and their eyes rolling

until the whites flashed. The drivers urged them on with wild cries and

busy whips.

At places the pathway entered the body of the mountain, passing behind

butts and needles of rock that time and erosion had prised away from the

cliff face. These rocky gateways were so narrow that the mules had to be

unloaded and the packs carried through by the drivers, and then the

mules were reloaded on the far side.

Look!" Royan cried in astonishment and pointed out into the void. A

black vulture rose up out of the depths on widespread pinions and

floated past them almost within arm's length, turning its gruesome naked

head of pink lappeted skin to stare at them with inscrutable black eyes

before sailing away.

"He is using the thermals of heated air from the valley for lift,'

Nicholas explained to her. He pointed out along the cliff to an

overhanging buttress on the same level as themselves. "There is one of

their nests." It was a shaggy mound of sticks piled on an inaccessible

ledge. The excrement of the birds that had inhabited it over the ages

had painted the cliff face below with streaks of brilliant white, and

even at this distance they could catch whiffs of rotting offal and

decaying flesh.

All that day they clung to the precipitous track as they eased their way

down that terrible wall. It was late afternoon, and they were only

halfway down, when the trail turned back upon itself once more and they

heard the rumble of the falls ahead. The sound grew louder and became a

thunderous roar as they moved around the corner of another buttress and

came in full sight of the falls.

The wind created by the torrent tugged at them and forced them to clutch

for handholds. The spray blew around them and wetted their upturned

faces, but the i: Ethiopian guide led them straight on until it seemed

that they must be washed away into the valley still hundreds of feet

below.

Then, miraculously, the waters parted and they stepped behind the great

translucent curtain into a deep recess of moss-covered and gleaming wet

rock, carved from the cliff by the force of water over the aeons. The

only light in this gloomy place was filtered through the waterfall,

green and mysterious like some undersea cavern.

"This is where we sleep tonight," Boris announced, obviously enjoying

their astonishment. He pointed to bundles of firewood piled at the rear

of the cave, and the smoke-blackened wall above the stone hearth. The

muleteers carrying food and supplies down to the priests in the

monastery have used this place for centuries."

As they moved deeper into the cavern, the sound of falling water became

muted to a dull background rumble and the rock underfoot was dry. Once

the servants had lit the fire, it became -a warm and comfortable, not to

say romantic, lodging.

With an old soldier's eye for the most comfortable spot, Nicholas laid

out his sleeping bag in a corner at the back of the cave, and quite

naturally Royan unrolled hers beside his. They were both tired out by

the unusual exertion of climbing down the cliff wall, and after supper

they stretched out in their sleeping bags in companionable silence and

watched the firelight playing on the roof of the cave.

"Just think!" Royan whispered. "Tomorrow we will be retracing the

footsteps of old Taita himself."

"To say nothing of the Virgin Mary,'Nicholas smiled.

"You are a horrid old cynic," she sighed. "And what is more, you

probably snore."

"You are about to find out the hard way," he told her, but she was

asleep before him. Her breathing was gentle and even, and he could just

hear it above the sound of the water. It was a long time since he had

had a lovely woman lying at his side. When he was sure she was deeply

under, he reached across and touched her cheek gently.

"Pleasant dreams, little one," he whispered tenderly.

"You have had a busy day." That was the way he had often bid his younger

daughter sleep.

The muleteers were stirring long before the dawn, and the whole party

was on the path, way again as soon as the light was strong enough to

reveal their footing. When the early sun struck the upper walls of the

cliff face, they were still high enough above the valley floor to have

an aerial view of the terrain.

Nicholas drew Royan aside and they let the rest of the caravan go on

down ahead of them.

He found a place to sit and unrolled the satellite photograph between

them. Picking out the major peaks and features of the scene, they

orientated themselves and began to make some order out of the

cataclysmic landscape that rioted below them.

"We can't see the Abbay river from here," Nicholas pointed out. "It's

still deep in the sub-gorge. We will probably only get our first glimpse

of it from almost directly above."

"If we have identified our present position accurately, then the river

will make two ox'bow bends around that bluff over there."

"Yes, and the confluence of the Dandera river with the Abbay is over

there, below those cliffs." He used his thumb knuckle as a rough scale

measure. "About fifteen miles from here."

"It looks as though the Dandera has changed its course many times over

the centuries.-I can see at least two gullies that look like ancient

river beds." She pointed down: "Mere, and there. They are all choked

with jungle now." She looked crestfallen, "Oh, Nicholas, it is such a

huge and confused area. How are we ever going to find the single

entrance to a tomb hidden in all that?"

"Tomb? What tomb is this?" Boris demanded with interest. He had come

back up the trail to find them. They had not heard his approach, and now

he stood over them.

"What tomb are you talking about?, "Why, the tomb of St. Frumentius, of

course," Nicholas told him smoothly, showing no concern at having been

overheard.

"Isn't the monastery dedicated to the saint?" Royan asked as smoothly,

as she rolled up the photograph.

"Da." He nodded, looking disappointed, as though he expected something

of more interest. "Yes, St. Frumentius.

But they will not let you visit the tomb. They will not let you into the

inner part of the monastery. Only the priests are allowed in there."

He removed his cap and scratched the short, stiff bristles that covered

his scalp. They rasped like wire under his fingernails. "This week is

the ceremony of Timkat, the Blessing of the Tabot. There will be a great

deal of excitement down there. You will find it very interesting, but

you will not be able to enter the Holy of Holies, nor will you be able

to see the actual tomb. I have never met any white man who has seen it."

He squinted up at the sun. "We must get on. It looks close, but it will

take us two more days to reach the Abbay.

It is bad ground down there. A long march, even for a famous dik-dik

hunter." He laughed delightedly at his own joke, and turned away down

the path.

As they approached the bottom of the cliff, the gradient of the trail

smoothed out and the steps became shallower and further apart. The going

became easier and their progress swifter, but the air had changed in

quality and taste. It was no longer cool, bracing mountain air but the

languid, enervating air of the equator, with the smell and taste of the

encroaching jungle.

"Hod' said Royan, shrugging out of the woollen shawl.

"Ten degrees hotter, at least," Nicholas agreed. He pulled his old army

jersey over his head, leaving.his hair in curly disarray. "And we can

expect it to get hotter before we reach the Abbay. We still have to

descend another three thousand feet."

Now the path followed the Dandera river for a while.

Sometimes they were several hundred feet above it, and shortly

afterwards they splashed waist-deep through a ford, hanging on to the

panniers of the mules to keep themselves from being swept away on the

flood.

Then the gorge of the Dandera river was too deep and steep to follow any

longer, as sheer cliffs dropped into dark pools. So they left the river

and followed the track that squirmed like a dying snake amongst eroded

hills and tall red stone bluffs.

A mile or two further downstream they rejoined the river in a different

mood as it rippled through dense forest.

The dangling lianas swept the surface and tree moss brushed their heads

as they passed, straggling and unkempt as the beard of the old priest at

Debra Maryam. Vervet monkeys chattered at them from the treetops and

ducked their heads in wide-eyed outrage at the human intrusion into

these secret places. Once a large animal crashed away through the

undergrowth, and Nicholas glanced across at Boris.

The Russian shook his head, laughing. "No, English, not dik-dik. Only

kudu."

On the hillside above them the kudu paused to look back. He was a large

bull with full twists to his wide corkscrew horns, a magnificent beast

with a maned dewlap and pricked ears shaped like trumpets. He stared at

them with huge, startled eyes. Boris whistled softly and his attitude

changed abruptly.

"Those horns are over fifty inches. They would get a place right at the

top of Rowland Ward." He was referring to the register of big game which

was the Bible of the trophy hunter. "Don't you want to take him,

English?" He ran to the nearest mule and pulled the Rigby rifle from its

slip case, then ran back and offered it to Nicholas.

"Let him go." Nicholas shook his head. "Only dik-dik for me."

With a flirt of his white powder-puff tail, the bull was gone over the

ridge. Boris shook his head disgustedly and spat into the river.

"Why did he try to insist that you kill it?" Royan demanded as they went

on.

"A photograph of a record pair of horns like that would look good on his

advertising brochure. Suck in them clients."

All day they followed the winding trail, and in the late afternoon they

camped in a clearing above the river where it was evident that other

caravans had camped many times before them. It seemed obvious that this

road was divided into time-honoured stages: every traveller took three

full days from the top of the falls to reach the monastery, and they all

camped at the same sites.

"Sorry. No shower here," Boris told his clients. "If you want to wash,

there is a safe pool around the first bend upstream."

Royan looked appealingly at Nicholas, "I am so tired and sweaty. Please

won't you stand guard for me, where you can hear me call if I need you?"

So he lay on the mossy bank just below the bend, out of sight but close

enough to hear her splash and squeal at the cold embrace of the water.

Once when he turned his head he realized that the current must have

drifted her downstream, for through the trees he caught a flash of a

naked back, and the curve of a buttock, creamy and glistening wet with

water. He looked away again guiltily, but he was startled by the

intensity of his physical arousal brought on by that brief glimpse of

lambent skin dappled with the late sunlight through the trees.

When she came downstream along the bank, singing softly, towelling her

wet hair, she called to him, "Your turn.

Do you want me to stand guard for you?"

"I am a big boy now." He shook his head, but as she passed him he

noticed the saucy glint in her eye, and he ly if she had been fully

aware of just how wondered sudden far downstream she had swum, and how

much he had seen.

He was titillated by the thought.

He went upstream to the pool alone, and as he stripped he looked down at

himself and felt guilty when he saw how she had moved him- Since

Rosalind, no other woman had had this effect on him.

"A nice cold plunge won't do you any harm, my lad." He threw his jeans

over a bush, and dived into the pool.

sat at the campfire after the evening meal, olas looked up suddenly and

cocked his

"Am I hearing things?" he wondered.

"No," Tessay laughed. "That is singing you hear. The priests from the

monastery are coming to welcome us."

They saw the torches then, winding up the hillside in procession,

flickering through the trees as they approached the camp. The muleteers

and the servants crowded forward, singing and clapping rhythmically to

greet the deputation from the monastery.

The deep male voices soared and then dropped away, almost to a whisper,

then rose again in descant, haunting and beautiful, the sound of Africa

in the night. It drove icy thrills down Nicholas's spine, so that he

shivered involuntarily.

Then they saw the white robes of the priests, flitting like moths in the

torchlight as they wound along the trail The camp servants fell on their

knees as the first of the holy men entered the perimeter of the camp.

They were young acolytes, bare-headed and barefooted. They were followed

by the monks, wearing long robes and tall turbans.

Their ranks wheeled aside and opened up, an honour guard for the phalanx

of deacons and fully ordained priests in their gaudy embroidered robes

and vestments.

Each of them carried a heavy Coptic cross, set on a tall staff and

intricately chased and worked innative silver.

They in turn opened into two ranks, still chanting, and allowed the

canopied palanquin to be carried forward by four hefty young acolytes

and placed in the centre of the camp. The crimson and yellow silk

curtains shimmered in the light of the camp lanterns and the torches of

the procession.

"We must go forward to welcome the abbot," Boris told Nicholas in a

stage whisper. "His name is Jali Hora." As they stepped up to the

litter, the curtains were drawn dramatically aside and a tall figure

stepped down to earth.

Both Tessay and Royan sank to their knees respectfully, and clasped

their hands at the breast. However, Nicholas and Boris remained on their

feet, and Nicholas inspected the abbot with interest.

jali Hora was skeletally thin. Beneath the skirts of his robe his legs

were like sticks of cured tobacco, tar'black and twisted, with

desiccated sinew and stringy muscle. His robe was green and gold, worked

with gold thread that glittered in the firelight. On his head he wore a

tall hat with a flat top embroidered with a pattern of crosses and

stars.

The abbot's face -was dead sooty black, the skin wrinkled and riven with

the deep etchings of age. There were few teeth behind his puckered lips,

and even those were yellowed and askew. His beard was startling silver

white, breaking like storm surf on the old bones of his jaw.

One eye was opaque blue and blinded with tropical ophthalmia, but the

other eye glistened like that of a hunting leopard.

He began to speak in a high, quavering voice. "A blessing," Boris warned

Nicholas, and they both bowed their heads respectfully. The assembled

priests came in with the chanted response each time the old man paused.

When at last he had finished giving his blessing jali Hora made the sign

of the cross in four directions, rotating slowly towards each point of

the compass, while two altar boys swung their silver censers vigorously,

deluging the night with pungent clouds of incense smoke.

After the blessing the two women came forward to kneel before the abbot.

He stooped over them and struck them lightly on each cheek with his

silver cross, chanting a falsetto blessing over them.

"They say the old man is over a hundred years old," Boris whispered to

Nicholas.

Two white-robed debteras brought forward a stool of African ebony, so

beautifully carved that Nicholas eyed it acquisitively. He guessed that

it was probably centuries old, and would have made a handsome addition

to the museum collection. The two debteras took Jah Hora's elbows and

gently seated him on the stool. Then the rest of the company sank to the

earth in a congregation around him, their black faces lifted towards him

attentively.

Tessay sat at his feet, and when her husband spoke she translated

quietly for him into Amharic. "It is a great pleasure and an honour for

me to greet you again, Holy Father."

The old man nodded, and Boris went on, "I have brought an English

nobleman of royal blood to, visit the monastery of St. Frumentius."

"I say, steady on, old boy!, Nicholas protested, but all the

congregation studied him with expectant interest.

"What do I do now?" he asked Boris out of the corner of his mouth.

"What do You think he came all this way for?" Boris grinned maliciously.

"He wants a gift. Money,'

"Maria Theresa dollars?" he enquired, referring to the centuries-old

traditional currency of Ethiopia, "Not necessarily. Times have changed.

jali Hora will be happy to take Yankee green-backs."

"How much?"

"You are a nobleman of royal blood. You will be hunting in his valley.

Five hundred dollars at least."

Nicholas winced and went to fetch his bag from one of the mule panniers.

When he came back he bowed to the abbot and placed the sheaf of currency

in his outstretched, pink-palmed claw. The abbot smiled, exposing the

yellow stumps of his teeth, and spoke briefly.

Tessay translated for him, "He says, "Welcome to the monastery of St.

Frumentius and the season of Timkat." He wishes you good hunting on the

banks of the Abbay river."

Immediately the solemn mood of the devout company changed. They broke

out in smiles and laughter, and the abbot looked expectantly at Boris.

"The holy abbot says it has been a thirsty journey," Tessay translated.

"The old devil loves his brandy," Boris explained, and shouted to the

camp butler. With some ceremony a bottle of brandy was brought and

placed on the camp table in front of the abbot, shoulder to shoulder

with the bottle of vodka in front of Boris. They toasted each other, and

the abbot tossed back a dram that made his good eye weep with tears, and

his voice husky as he directed a question at Royan.

"He asks you, Woizero Royan, where do you come from, daughter, that you

follow the true path of Christ the Saviour of man?"

"I am an Egyptian, of the old religion," Royan replied.

The abbot and all his priests nodded and beamed with approval.

"We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, the Egyptians and the

Ethiopians," the abbot told her. "Even the word Coptic derives from the

Greek for Egyptian. For over sixteen hundred years the Abuna, the

bishop, of Ethiopia was always appointed by the Patriarch in Cairo. Only

the Emperor Haile Selassie changed that in 1959, but we still follow the

true road to Christ. You are welcome, my daughter."

His debtera poured another dram of brandy and the old man swallowed it

at a gulp. Even Boris looked impressed, "Where does the skinny old black

tortoise put it?" he wondered aloud. Tessay did not translate, but she

lowered her eyes and the hurt she felt for the insult to the holy man

showed on her madonna features.

Jah Hora turned to Nicholas. "He wants to know what animals you have

come to hunt here in his valley," Tessay told him.

Nicholas steeled himself and then replied carefully.

There was a long moment of disbelief, then the abbot cackled happily and

the assembled priests shouted with incredulous mirth.

"A dik-dik! You have come to hunt a dikdik! But there is no meat on an

animal that size."

Nicholas let them get over the first shock, and then produced a

photograph of the mounted specimen of Moquoda harPerU from the museum.

He placed it on the table in front of Jah Hora.

"This is no ordinary dik-dik. It is a holy dik-dik," he told them in

portentous tones, nodding at Tessay for the translation. "Let me recount

the legend." They were silenced by the prospect of a good story with

religious overtones. Even the abbot arrested the glass on its way to his

lips and replaced it on the table. His one eye swivelled from the

photograph to Nicholas's face.

"When John the Baptist was dying of starvation in the desert," Nicholas

began, and a few of the priests crossed themselves at the mention of the

saint's name, "he had been thirty days and thirty nights without a

morsel passing his lips-' Nicholas spun out the yarn for a while,

dwellin on the extremities of hunger endured by the saint, details

savoured by his audience who liked their holy men to suffer in the name

of righteousness.

"In the end the Lord took mercy on his servant and placed a small

antelope in a thicket of acacia, held fast by the thorns. He said unto

the saint: "I have prepared a meal for you that you shall not die. Take

of this meat and eat."

Where John the Baptist touched the small creature, the marks of his

thumb and fingers were imprinted upon its back for all time, and all

generations to come." They were silent and impressed.

Nicholas passed the photograph to the abbot. "See the prints of the

saint's fingers upon it."

The old man studied the print avidly, holding it up to his single eye,

and at last he exclaimed, "It is true. The marks of the saint's fingers

are clear to see."

He passed it to his deacons. Encouraged by the abbot's endorsement, they

exclaimed and wondered over the picture of the insignificant creature in

its coat of striped fur'.

"Have any of your men ever laid eyes upon one of these animals?"

Nicholas demanded, and one after the other they shook their heads. The

photograph completed the circle and was passed to the rank of squatting

acolytes.

Suddenly one of them leaped to his feet prancing, brandishing the

photograph and gibbering with excitement.

"I have seen this holy creature! With my very own eyes, I have seen it."

He was a young boy, barely adolescent.

There were cries of derision and disbelief from the others. One of them

snatched the print from the boy's grasp and waved it out of his reach,

taunting him with it.

"The child is soft in the head, and often possessed by demons and

fits,'Jali Hora explained sorrowfully. "Take no notice of him, poor

Tamre!'

Tamre's eyes were wild as he ran down the rank of acolytes, trying

desperately to recapture the photograph.

But they passed it back and forth, keeping it just out of his reach,

teasing him and jeering at his antics.

Nicholas rose to his feet to intervene. He found this taunting of a

weak'minded lad offensive, but at that moment something tripped in the

boy's mind, and he fell to the ground as though struck down by a club.

His back arched and his limbs twitched and jerked uncontrollably, his

eyes rolled back into his skull until only the whites showed, and white

froth creamed on his lips that were drawn back in a grinning rictus.

Before Nicholas could go to him, four of his peers picked him up bodily

and carried him away. Their laughter dwindled into the night. The others

acted as though this was nothing out of the ordinary, and Jali Hora

nodded to his debtera to refill his glass.

it was late when at last Jah Hora took his leave and was helped into the

palanquin by his deacons. He took the remains of the brandy with him,

clutching the halfempty bottle in one clawed hand and tossing out

benedictions with the other.

"You made a good impression, Milord English," Boris told him. "He liked

your story of John the Baptist, but he liked your money even more."

When they set out the next morning, the path followed the river for a

while. But within a mile the waters quickened their pace, and then raced

through the narrow opening between high red cliffs and plunged over

another waterfall.

Nicholas left the welltrodden trail and went down to the brink of the

falls. He looked down two hundred feet into a deep cleft in the rock,

only just wide enough to allow the angry river to squeeze through. He

could have thrown a stone across the gap. There was no path nor foothold

in that chasm, and he turned back and rejoined the rest of the caravan

as it detoured away from the river and into another thickly wooded

valley.

"This was probably once the course of the Dandera river, before it cut a

fresh bed for itself through the chasm." Royan pointed to the high

ground on each side of the path, and then to the water-worn boulders

that littered the trail.

"I think you are right," Nicholas agreed. These cliffs seem to be an

intrusion of limestone through the basalt and sandstone. The whole area

has been severely faulted and cut up by erosion and the ever-changing

river. You can be certain that those limestone cliffs are riddled with

caves and springs."

Now the trail descended rapidly towards the Blue Nile, falling away

almost fifteen hundred feet in altitude' in the last few miles. The

sides of the valley were heavily covered with vegetation and at many

places small springs of water oozed from the limestone and trickled down

the old river bed.

The heat built up steadily as they went down, and soon even Royan's

khaki shirt was stained with dark patches of sweat between her shoulder

blades.

At one stage a freshet of clear water gushed from an area of dense bush

high up the hillside and swelled the stream into a small river. Then

they turned a corner of the valley and found that they and the stream

had rejoined the main flow of the Dandera river. Looking back up the

gorge, they could see where the river had emerged from the chasm through

a narrow archway in the cliff. The rock surrounding the cleft was a

peculiar pink in colour, smooth and polished, folded back upon itself,

so that it resembled the mucous membrane on the inside of a pair of

human lips.

The rock -was of such an unusual colour and texture that they were both

struck by it. They turned aside to study it while the mules went on

downwards, the clatter of their receding hoofbeats and the voices of the

men echoing and reverberating weirdly in this confined and unearthly

place.

"It looks like some monstrous gargoyle, gushing water through its

mouth," Royan whispered, looking up at the cleft and at those strange

rock formations. "I can imagine how the ancient Egyptians, led by Taita

and Prince Memnon, would have been moved if they had ever reached this

place. &at mystical connotations would they have attributed to such a

natural phenomenon!'

Nicholas was silent, studying her face. Her eyes were dark with awe, and

her expression solemn. In this setting she reminded him strongly of a

portrait that he had in his collection at Quenton Park, It was a

fragment of a fresco from the Valley of the Kings, depicting a

Ramessidian princess.

Why should that surprise you?" he asked himself. "The very same blood

runs in her veins."

She turned to face him, "Give me hope, Nicky. Tell me that I have not

dreamed all this. Tell me that we are going to find what we are looking

for, and that we are going to vindicate Duraid's death."

Her face was upturned to his, and it seemed to glow under the light dew

of perspiration and the strength of her commitment. He was seized by an

almost overwhelming urge to take her up in his arms and kiss those

moistly parted lips, but instead he turned away and started down the

trail.

He dared not look back at her until he had himself fully under control.

After a while he heard her quick, light tread on the rock behind him.

They went on down in silence, and he was so preoccupied that he was

unprepared for the sudden stunning vista that opened abruptly before

them.

They stood high on a ledge above the sub-gorge of the Nile. Below them

was a mighty cauldron of red rock five hundred feet deep. The main flow

of the legendary river plunged in a green torrent into the shadowy

abyss. It was so deep that the sunlight did not reach down into it.

Beside them the sparser waters of the Dandera river took the same leap,

falling white as an egret's feather, twisting and blowing in the false

wind of the gorge. In the depths the waters mingled, churning and

roiling together in a welter of foam, turning upon themselves like a

great wheel, weighty and viscous as oil, until at last they found the

exit gorge and tore away down it with irresistible force and power.

"You sailed through that in a boat?"Royan asked, with awe in her voice.

"We were young and foolish, then,'Nicholas said with a sad little smile

that was haunted by old memories.

They were silent for a long while. Then RQyan said softly, "One can see

how this would have stopped Taita and his prince as they came upstream."

She looked about her, and then pointed down the gorge towards the west.

"They certainly could never have come up the sub-gorge itself. They must

have followed the line of the top of the cliffs, right along here where

we are standing." Her voice took on an edge of excitement at the

thought.

"Unless they came up the other side of the river," Nicholas suggested to

tease her, and her face fell.

"I hadn't thought of that. Of course it's possible. How would we ever

cross over, if we find no evidence on this side?

"Let's consider that only when it's forced upon us. We have enough to

contend with as it is, without looking for more hardships."

Again they were silent, both of them considering the magnitude and

uncertainty of the task that they had taken on. Then Royan roused

herself.

"Where is the monastery? I can see no sign of it."

"It's in the cliff right under our feet."

"Will we camp down there?"

"I doubt it. Let's catch up with Boris and find out what he intends to

do."

They followed the trail along the edge of the cauldron, and came up with

the mule caravan at a spot where the track forked. One branch turned

away from the river into a wooded depression, while the other still

hugged the rimrock.

Boris was waiting for them, and he indicated the track that led away

from the river. "There is a good campsite up there in the trees where I

stayed last time I hunted down here."

There were several tall wild fig trees throwing shade across this glade,

and a spring of fresh water at the head.

To minimize the loads, Boris had not carried tents down into the gorge.

So as soon as the mules were unloaded he set his men to building three

small thatched huts for their accommodation, and to digging a pit

latrine well away from the spring.

While this work was going on, Nicholas beckoned to Royan and Tessay, and

the three of them set off to explore the monastery. Where the trail

forked, Tessay led them along the path that skirted the cliff top, and

soon they came to a broad rock staircase that descended the cliff face.

There was a party of white-robed monks coming UP the stone stairway, and

Tessay stopped briefly to chat to them. As they went on she told

Nicholas and Royan, "Today is Katera, the eve of the festival of Timkat,

which begins tomorrow. They are very excited. It is one of the major

events of the religious year."

"What does the festival celebrate?" Royan asked. "It is not part of the

Church calendar in Egypt."

"It's the Ethiopian Epiphany, celebrating the baptis of Christ,' Tessay

explained. "During the ceremony the tabot will be taken down to the

river to be rededicated and revitalized, and the acolytes will receive

baptism, as did Jesus Christ at the hand of the Baptist."

They followed the staircase down the sheer cliff face.

The treads of the steps had been dished by the passage of bare feet over

the centuries. Down they went, with the great cauldron of the Nile

boiling and hissing and steaming with spray hundreds of feet below them.

Suddenly they came out on to a wide terrace that had been hewn by man's

hand from the living rock. The red rock overhung it, forming a roof to

the cloister with arches of stone left in place by the ancient builders

to support it.

The interior wall of the long covered terrace was riddled with the

entrances to the catacombs beyond. Over the ages the cliff face had been

mined and burrowed to form the halls and cells, the vestibules, churches

and shrines of the monastic community which had inhabited them for well

over a thousand years.

There were groups of monks seated along the length of the terrace. Some

of them were listening to one of the deacons reading aloud from an

illuminated copy of the scriptures.

"So many of them are illiterate," Tessay sighed. "The Bible must be read

and explained to even the monks, for most of them are unable to read it

for themselves."

"This was what the Church of Constantine was like, the Church of

Byzantium," Nicholas pointed out quietly.

"It remains the Church of cross and book, of elaborate and sumptuous

ritual in a predominantly illiterate world today." As they wandered

slowly down the cloister they passed other seated groups who, under the

direction of a precentor, were chanting and singing the Amharic psalms

and hymns.

>From the interior of the cells and caves there came the IC hum of

voices raised in prayer or supplication, and the air was thick with the

smell of human occupation that had taken place over hundreds of years.

It was the smell of wood smoke and incense, of stale food and excrement,

of sweat and piety, of suffering and of sickness. Amongst the groups of

monks were the pilgrims who had made the journey, or been carried by

their relatives, down into the gorge to make petition to the saint, or

to seek from him a cure for their disease and suffering.

There were blind children weeping in their mothers' arms, and lepers

with the flesh rotting and falling from their bones, and still others in

the coma of sleeping sickness or some other terrible tropical

affliction. Their whines and moans of agony blended with the chanting of

the monks, and with the distant clamour of the Nile as it cascaded into

the cauldron.

They came at last to the entrance to the cavern cathedral of St.

Frumentius. It was a circular opening like the mouth of a fish, but the

surrounds of the portals were painted with a dense border of stars and

crosses, and of saintly heads. The portraits were primitive, and

rendered in ochre and soft earthy tones that were all the more appealing

for their childlike simplicity. The eyes of the saints were huge and

outlined in charcoal, their expressions tranquil and benign.

A deacon in a grubby green velvet robe guarded the entrance, but when

Tessay spoke to him he smiled and nodded and gestured for them to enter.

The lintel was low and Nicholas had to duck his head to pass under it,

but on the far side he raised it again to look about him in amazement.

The roof of the cavern was so high that it was lost in the gloom. The

rock walls -were covered with murals, a celestial host of angels and

archangels who flickered and wavered in the light of the candles and oil

lamps. They were partially obscured by the long tapestry banners that

hung down the walls, grimy with incense soot, their fringes frayed and

tattered. On one of these St. Michael rode a prancing white horse, on

another the Virgin knelt at the foot of the cross, while above her the

pate body of Christ bled from the wound of the Roman spear in his side.

This was the outer nave of the church. In the far wall ". the doorway to

the middle chamber was guarded by a massive pair of wooden doors that

stood open. The three of them crossed the stone floor, picking their way

between the kneeling petitioners and pilgrims in their rags and tatters,

in their misery and their religious ecstasy. In the feeble light of the

lamps and the blue haze of incense smoke they seemed lost souls

languishing eternally in the outer darkness of purgatory.

The visitors reached the set of three stone steps that led up to the

inner doors, but their way was blocked at the threshold by two robed

deacons in tall, flat-topped hats.

One of these addressed Tessay sternly.

"They will not even let us enter the qiddist, the middle chamber,'

Tessay told them regretfully. "Beyond that lies the maqdas, the Holy of

Holies." A

They peered past the guards, and in the gloom of the qiddist could just

make out the door to the inner sanctum.

"Only the ordained priests are allowed to enter the maqdas, for it

contains the tabot and the entrance to the tomb of the saint."

Disappointed and frustrated, they made their way out of the cavern and

back along the terrace. They ate their dinner under a sky full of stars.

The air was still stiflingly hot, and clouds of mosquitoes hovered just

out of range of the repellents with which they had all smeared their

exposed skin.

"And so, English, I have got you where you wanted to be. Now, how are

you going to find this animal that you have come so far to hunt?" The

vodka was making Boris belligerent again.

"At first light I want you to send out your trackers to work the country

downstream from here," Nicholas told him. "Dik-dik are usually active in

the early morning, and again late in the afternoon."

"You are teaching your grandpapa to skin a cat," said Boris, angling

the metaphor. He poured himself another vodka.

"Tell them to check for spoor." Nicholas deliberately laboured his

point. "I imagine that the tracks of the striped variety will look very

similar to those of the common dikdik. If they find indications, then

they must sit quietly along the edge of the thickest patches of bush and

watch for any movement of the animals. Dik-dik are very territorial.

They won't stray far from their own turf."

"Da! Da! I will tell them. But what will you do? Will you spend the day

in camp with the ladies, English?" He grinned slyly. "If you are lucky,

you may soon not need separate huts?" He guffawed at his own wit,.and

Tessay , looked distressed and stood up with the excuse that she was

going to the kitchen hut to supervise the chef.

Nicholas ignored the boorish pleasantry. "Royan and I will work the

river in bush along the banks of the Dandera river. It looked very

promising habitat for dik-dik. Warn your people to keep clear of the

river. I don't want the game disturbed."

They left camp the next morning in the glimmer of the dawn. Nicholas

carried the Rigby rifle and a light day pack, and led Royan along the

bank of the Dandera. They moved slowly, stopping every dozen paces to

look and listen. The thickets were alive with the sounds and movements

of the small mammals and birds.

"The Ethiopians do not have a hunting tradition, and I imagine the monks

never disturb the wildlife here in the gorge." He pointed to the tracks

of a small antelope in the moist earth of the bank. "Bushbuck," he told

her. "Menelik's bushbuck. Unique to this part of the world. A much

sought-after trophy."

"Do you really expect to find your great-grandfather's dik-dik?" she

asked. "You seemed so determined when you discussed it with Boris."

"Of course not," he grinned. "I think the old man made it up. It should

rather have been named Harper's chimera.

It probably was the skin of a striped mongoose that he used after all.

We Harpers didn't get on in the world by always sticking to the literal

truth."

They paused to watch a Tacazze suribird fluttering over a bunch of

yellow blossoms high above them in the canopy of the river in forest.

The tiny bird's plumage sparkled like a tiara of emeralds.

"Still, it gives us a wonderful excuse to fossick about in the bushes."

He glanced back to make certain that they were well clear of the camp,

and then gestured for her to sit beside him on a fallen treetrunk. "So,

let's get it clear in our minds what we are looking for. You tell me."

"We are looking for the remains of a funerary temple, or the ruins of

the necropolis where the workers lived while they were excavating

Pharaoh Mamose's tomb."

"Any sort of masonry or stonework," he agreed, especially Ily some sort

of column or monument."

Taita's stone testament," se noc "It's engraved or chiselled with

hieroglyphics. Probably badly weathered, fallen over, covered with

vegetation - I don't know. Anything at all. We are fishing blind in dark

waters."

"Well, why are we still sitting here? Let's start fishing." In the

middle of the morning Nicholas found the tracks of a dik-dik along the

river bank. They took up a position against the hole of one of the big

trees and sat quietly for a while in the shadows of the forest, until at

last they were rewarded by a glimpse of one of the tiny creatures. It

passed close to where they sat, wriggling its trunklike proboscis,

stepping daintily on its fill hooves, nipping a leaf from a low-hanging

branch, and munching it busily. However, its coat was a uniform drab

grey, unrelieved by stripes of any kind.

When it disappeared into the undergrowth, Nicholas stood up. "No luck.

Common variety," he whispered. "Let's get on."

A little after noon they reached the spot where the river issued from

between the pink flesh-coloured cliffs of the chasm. They explored these

as far as they were able before their way was blocked by the cliffs. The

rock fell straight into the flood, and there was no foothold at the

water's edge that would allow them to penetrate further.

They retreated downstream, and crossed to the far bank over a primitive

suspension bridge of lianas and hairy flax rope that Nicholas guessed

had been built by the monks from the monastery. Once again they tried to

push on into the chasm. Nicholas even attempted to wade around of pink

rock that barred the way, around the first bus but the current was too

strong and threatened to sweep him off his feet. He was forced to

abandon the attempt.

"If we can't get through there, then it's highly unlikely that Taita and

his workmen would have done so."

They went back as far as the hanging bridge and found a shady place

close to the water to eat the lunch that Tessay had packed for them. The

heat in the middle of the day was stupefying. Royan wet her cotton

neckerchief in the river and dabbed at her face as she lay beside him.

Nicholas lay on his back and studied every inch of the pink cliffs

through his binoculars. He was looking for any cleft or opening in their

smooth polished surfaces.

He spoke without lowering the binoculars. "Reading River God, it looks

as if Taita actually enlisted help to switch the bodies of Tanus, Great

Lion of Egypt, and the Pharaoh himself." He lowered the glasses and

looked at Royan. "I find that puzzling, for it would have been an

outrageous thing to do in terms of his period and belief Is that a fair

translation of the scrolls? Did Taita truly switch the bodies?"

She laughed and rolled over to face him. "Your old chum Wilbur has an

overheated imagination. The only basis for that whole bit of

story-telling is a single line in the scrolls. "To me he was more a king

than ever Pharaoh been."' She rolled on to her back again. "That is a

good example of my objection to the book. He mixes fact and fantasy into

an inextricable stew. As far as I know and believe, Tanus rests in his

own tomb and the Pharaoh in his., "Pity!" Nicholas sighed and stuffed

the book back in his pack. "It was a romantic little touch that I

enjoyed." He glanced at his wrist-watch and stood up. "Come on, I want

to do a recon down the other spur of the valley. I spotted some

interesting ground up there whilst we were on the approach march

yesterday."

It was late afternoon when they arrived back at the camp, and Tessay

hurried out of her kitchen hut to greet them.

"I have been waiting for you to return. We have had an interesting

invitation from Jali Hora, the abbot. He has invited us to a banquet in

the monastery to celebrate Kateral the eve of Timkat. The servants have

set up your, shower, and the water is hot. There is just time for you to

change before we go down to the monastery."

The abbot sent a party of young acolytes to escort them to the

banqueting hall. These IMC_ , young men arrived in the short African

twilight, carrying torches to light the way.

Royan recognized one of these as Tamre, the epileptic boy. When she

singled him out for her warmest smile, he came forward shyly and offered

her a bouquet of wild flowers that he had picked from beside the river.

She was unprepared for this courtesy, and without thinking she thanked

him in Arabic.

"Shukran."

"Taffa"," the boy replied immediately, using the correct gender of the

response, and in an accent that told her instantly that he was fluent in

her language.

"How do you speak Arabic so well?" she asked, intrigued.

The boy hung his head with embarrassment and mumbled, "My mother is from

Massawa, on the Red Sea. It is the language of my childhood., When they

set off for the monastery, the boy monk followed Royan like a puppy.

Once more they descended the stairway down the cliff and came out on to

the torchlit terrace. The narrow cloisters were packed with humanity,

and as they made their way through the press, with the honour guard of

acolytes clearing a way for them, black faces called Amharic greetings

and black hands reached out to touch them.

They stooped through the low entrance to the outer nave of the

cathedral. The chamber was lit with oil lamps an torches, so that the

murals of saints and angels danced in the uncertain light. The stone

floor was covered with a carpet of freshly cut reeds and rushes, their

sweet herbal perfume leavening the heavy, smoky air. It seemed that the

entire brotherhood of monks were seated cross-legged on this spongy

carpet. They greeted the entrance of the little party of ferengi with

cries of welcome and shouts of benediction. Beside each seated figure

stood a flask of tej, the honey mead of the country. It was clear from

the happy, sweaty faces that the flasks had already done good service.

The visitors were led forward to a spot that had been left clear for

them directly in front of the wooden doors to the qkUst, the middle

chamber. Their escort urged them to sit and make themselves comfortable

in this space. As soon as they were settled, another party of acolytes

came in from the terrace bearing flasks of tej, and knelt to place a

separate pottery flask in front of each of them.

Tessay leaned across to whisper, "Better you let me sample this tej

before you try it. The strength and colour and taste vary in every place

that it is served, and some of it is ferocious." She raised her flask

and drank directly from the elongated neck. When she lowered the flask

she smiled, "This is a good brew. If you are careful, you will be all

right with it., The monks seated around them were urging them to drink,

and Nicholas raised his flask. The monks clapped and laughed as he

tasted the liquor. It was light and pleasant, with a strong bouquet of

wild honey. "Not bad!" he gave his opinion, but Tessay warned him,

"Later they will almost certainly offer you katikala. Be very careful of

that! It is distilled from fermented grain and it will take your head

off at the shoulders."

The monks were concentrating their hospitality on Royan now. The fac t

that she was a Coptic Christian, a true believer, had impressed them. It

was obvious also that her beauty had not gone entirely unremarked by

this company of holy and celibate men.

Nicholas leaned close to her, and whispered, "You will have to fake it

for their benefit. Hold it up to your lips and pretend to swallow, or

they will not leave you in peace."

As she lifted the&ask the monks hooted with delight and saluted her with

their own upraised flasks. She lowered the flask again, and whispered to

Nicholas.

"It's delicious. It tastes of honey."

"You broke your vow of abstinence!" he chided her laughing. "Did you?"

"Just a drop," she admitted, "and anyway I never made any vows."

The acolytes knelt in turn in front of each guest, offering them a bowl

of hot water in which to wash their right hands in preparation for the

feast.

Suddenly there was the sound of music and drums, and a band of musicians

filed through the open doors of the qiddist. They took up their

positions along the side walls of the chamber, while the congregation

craned expectantly to peer into its dim interior.

At last Jali Hora, the ancient abbot, appeared at the head of the steps.

He wore a full-length robe of crimson satin, with a gold

thread-embroidered stole around his shoulders. On his head was a massive

crown. Though it glittered like gold, Nicholas knew that it was gilt

brass, and the multi'coloured stones with- which it was set were just as

certainly glass and paste.

JahbHora raised his crook, which was surmounted by an ornate silver

cross, and a weighty silence fell upon the company.

"Now he will say the grace," Tessay told them, and bowedh'er head.

JahHora's grace was fervent and lengthy, his reedy falsetto punctuated

by devout responses from the monks.

When at last he came to the end, two splendidly robed debteras helped

Jali Hora down the stairs and seated him on his carved jimmera stool at

the head of the circle of senior deacons and priests.

The religious mood of the monks changed to one of festive bonhomie as a

procession of acolytes entered from the terrace, each of them bearing

upon his head a flat woven reed basket the size of a wagon wheel. They

placed one of these in the centre of each circle of guests.

Then at a signal from JahHora, acting in unison they whipped the lid off

each basket. A jovial cheer went up from the monks, for each basket

contained a shallow brass bowl that was filled from rim to rim with

round sheets of the flat grey unleavened iniera bread.

Two acolytes staggered in from the terrace, barely able to carry between

them a steaming brass pot filled with gallons of wat, a spicy stew of

fat mutton. Over each of the bowls of injera bread they tipped the great

pot and slopped gouts of the runny red-brown wat, the surface glistening

with hot grease.

The assembly fell on the food voraciously. They tore off wads of injera

and scooped up the mess of wat with it, and then stuffed the parcel into

their open mouths, which remained open as they chewed. They washed it

down with long swallows from the flasks, before wrapping themselves

another parcel of running wat. Soon every one of them was greasy to the

elbow and their chins were smeared thickly, as they chewed and drank and

shouted with laughter.

The serving acolytes dumped thick cakes of another type of injera beside

each guest. These were stiffer and less yeasty in taste, friable and

crumbling, unlike the latex rubber consistency of the thin grey sheets

of the first kind.

Nicholas and Royan tried to show their appreciation of the food without

coating themselves with layers of it as the oth _rs were doing. Despite

its appearance the wat was really rather tasty, and the dry yellow

injera helped to cut the grease.

The communal brass bowls were emptied in remarkably short order. Only

the churned up mess of bread and grease remained when the acolytes came

tottering in under the weight of another set of pots, this time filled

to overflowing with curried chicken wat. This was splashed into the

bowls on top of the remains of the mutton, and again the monks had at

it.

While they gobbled up the chicken, the tej flasks were replenished and

the monks became more raucous.

"I don't think I can take much more of this," Royan told Nicholas

queasily.

"Close your eyes and think of England," he advised her.

"You are the star of the evening. They aren't going to let you escape."

As soon as the chicken was eaten, the servers were back with fresh pots,

this time brimming with fiery beef wat. They dumped this on the remnants

of both the mutton and the chicken.

The monk in the circle opposite Royan emptied his flask, and when an

acolyte tried to refill it, he waved the lad away with a shout of,

"Katikala!'

The -cry was taken up by the other monks. "Katikala!

Katikalar The acolytes hurried out and returned with dozens of bottles

of the gin-clear liquor and brass bowls the size of tea cups.

"This is the stuff to be careful of," Tessay told them.

Surreptitiously both Nicholas and Royan were able to dribble the

contents of their bowls into the mat of reeds on which they were

sitting, but the monks guzzled theirs down greedily.

"Boris is getting his share," Nicholas remarked to Royan. The Russian

was red-faced and sweating, grinnin 9 like an idiot as he downed another

bowlful.

Enlivened by the katikala the monks started playing a game. One of them

would wrap a packet of beef wat with a sheet of injera, and then, as it

dripped fat from his poised right hand, he would turn to the monk

beside. The victim would open his mouth until his jaws were at full

stretch, and the packet would be stuffed into it by his considerate

neighbour. The morsel was, of course, as large as a human gape could

possibly accommodate, and in order to engulf it the victim had to risk

death by asphyxiation.

The rules of the game seemed to be that he was not allowed to use his

hands to get it into his own mouth, neither should he dribble down the

front of his robe, nor splutter gravy over those seated near to him. His

contortions, together with his gulping and choking and gasping for air,

were the source of uncontrollable hilarity. When at last he succeeded in

getting it down, a brass bowl of katikala was held to his lips as a

reward. He was expected to send the contents in the same direction as

the parcel of injera.

Jali Hora, by now warmed with tej and kadkala, lurched to his feet. In

his right hand he held aloft a streaming parcel of injera. As he began

an unsteady progress across the chamber, with his shiny crown awry, they

did not at first realize his intentions. The entire company'watched him

with interest.

Then suddenly Royan stiffened and whispered with horror, "No! Please,

no. Save me, Nicky. Don't let this happen to me."

"This is the price you pay for being the leading lady," he told her.

Jali Hora was making his rather erratic way towards where she sat. The

gravy from the morsel he carried for her was trickling down his forearm

and dripping from his elbow.

The band standing along the side wall struck up a lively air. As the

abbot came to a halt in front of Royan, rocking on his suspension like

an ancien " carriage, they fiddled and fifed and the drummers broke out

in a frenzy.

The abbot presented his gift, and with one last despairing glance at

Nicholas Royan faced the inevitable. She closed her eyes and opened her

mouth.

To roars of encouragement and the urgings of LIFE and drum, she

struggled and chewed. Her face turned rosy and her eyes watered. At one

point Nicholas thought she would admit defeat and spit it out on to the

reed-covered have to floor. But slowly and courageously, a bit at a

time, she forced it down and then fell back exhausted.

Her audience, clapping and hooting loved every moment of it. The abbot

sank stiffly to his knees in front of her and embraced her, almost

losing his crown in the ess. Then without relinquishing his embrace proc

he made himself a place beside her.

"It looks as though you have made another conquest," Nicholas told her

dryly. "I think he will be on your lap at moment, if you don't duck and

run." any Royan reacted swiftly. She reached across and grabbed a bottle

of kadkala, and a bowl which she filled to the brim.

"Drink it up, Pops!" she told him, and held the bowl to his lips. Jab

Hora accepted the challenge, but he had to release her to drink from her

hand.

Suddenly Royan started so violently that she spilled what was left in

the bowl down the old man's robe. The blood drained from her face and

she began to tremble as though in a high fever as she stared at Jab

Hora's crown, which had slipped forward over his eyes.

What is it?" Nicholas demanded quietly but urgently, and he reached

across to steady her with a hand on her arm. Nobody else in the chamber

had noticed her distress, but he was fully attuned to her moods by now.

Still staring ashen-faced at the crown, she dropped the bowl and reached

down and grasped his wrist. He was startled by her strength. Her grip

was painful,,and he saw that she had driven her nails into his flesh so

hard that she had broken the skin.

"Look at his crown! The jewel! The blue jewel!" she gasped.

He saw it then, amongst the gaudy shards of glass and pebbles of

semi-precious garnets and rock crystal. The size of a silver dollar, it

was a seal of blue ceramic, perfectly round, and baked to a hard,

impervious finish. In the centre of the disc was an etching of an

Egyptian war chariot, and above it the distinctive and unmistakable

outline of the hawk with the broken wing. Around the circumference was a

legend engraved in hieroglyphics. It took him only a few moments to read

it to himself:

I COMMAND TEN THOUSAND CHARIOTS.

I AM TAITA, MASTER OF THE ROYAL HORSE.

Royan desperately wanted to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the

cavern. The parcel of wat that the abbot had forced upon her had mixed

heavily with the few mouthfuls of tej she had swallowed, and this

feeling in Turn was aggravated by the smell of the dirty food bowls

thick with congealing grease and the fumes of raw katikala.

if Already some of the monks were puking drunk, and the smell of vomit

added to the cloying miasma of incense smoke within the chamber.

However, she was still the centre of the abbot's attention. He sat

beside her stroking her bare arm and reciting garbled extracts from the

Amharic scriptures; Tessay had long ago given up translating for her.

Royan looked hopefully at Nicholas but he was withdrawn and silent,

seeming oblivious of his surroundings. She knew that he was thinking

about the ceramic seal in the abbot's crown, for his eyes kept

returning thoughtfully to it.

She wanted to be alone with him to discuss this extraordinary discovery.

Her excitement outweighed the distress of her overloaded stomach. She

felt her cheeks flushed with it. Every time she looked up at the old

man's crown her heart fluttered, and she had to make an effort to stop

herself reaching up, seizing the shiny blue seal and ripping it from its

setting to examine it more closely.

She knew how unwise it was to draw attention to the scrap of ceramic,

but when she glanced across the circle she saw that Boris was far past

noticing anything other than the bowl of kadkala in his hand. In the end

it was who gave her the excuse for which she had been Boris seeking. He

tried to get to his feet, but his legs collapsed under him. He sagged

forward quite gracefully, and his face dropped into the bowl of

grease-sodden injera bread.

He lay there snoring noisily, and Tessay appealed to Nicholas.

"Alto Nicholas, what am I to do?"

Nicholas considered the unlovely spectacle of the rate hunter. There

were scraps of bread and beef stew prost sticking like confetti in his

cropped ginger hair.

"I rather suspect Prince Charming has had enough for one night the

murmured.

stood up, stooped over Boris and gripped one wrist.

He With a sudden jerk he lifted him into a sitting position, nd then

heaved him upright and over his shoulder in a a fireman's lift.

"Good night, all!" he told the assembled monks, very few of whom were in

any condition to respond. Then he carried Boris away, draped over his

shoulders with head and feet dangling. The two women had to hurry to

keep up with Nicholas as he strode down the terrace and then up the

stone stairway without a pause.

"I did not realize Alto Nicholas was so strong," Tessay panted, for the

stairs were steep and the pace was hard.

didn't either," Royan admitted. She experienced a ridiculous proprietary

pride in his feat, and smiled at herself in the darkness as they

approached the camp.

"Don't be silly," she admonished herself. "He isn't yours to boast

about." Nicholas threw his burden down on Boris's own bed in thatched

hut and stood back panting heavily, the sweat trickling down his cheeks.

"That's a pretty good recipe for a heart attack," he gasped.

Boris groaned, rolled over and vomited copiously over his pillows and

bedlinen.

"On that pleasant note I will bid you all goodnight and sweet dreams,'

Nicholas told Tessay, stepping out of the hut into the warm African

night.

He breathed in the smell of the forest and the river with relief, and

then turned to Royan as she gripped his arm.

"Did you see-' she burst out excitedly, but he laid his fingers on her

lips to silence her, and with a cautionary frown in the direction of

Boris's hut led her away to her own hut.

"Did you see it?" she demanded, unable to contain herself longer. "Could

you read it?"

"'I command ten thousand chariots,"' he recited.

"'I am Taita, master of the royal horse,"' she completed it for him. "He

was here. Oh, Nicky! He was here. Taita was here. That's the proof we

wanted. Now we know that we are not wasting our time."

She flopped down on her camp bed and hugged herself ecstatically. "Do

you think the abbot will let us examine the sealT

He shook his head, "My guess is no. The crown is one of the monastery

treasures. Even for you, his favourite lady, I don't think he would do

it. Anyway, it would not be wise to show any great interest in it. Jali

Hora obviously does not have any idea of its significance. Apart from

that, we don't want to alert Boris."

suppose you are right." She moved over on the bed to make room for him.

"Sit down."

He sat down beside her, and she asked, "Where do you suppose the seal

came from? Who found it? Where, and when?"

"Steady on, dear girl. That's four questions in one, and I don't have an

answer to any of them."

"Guess!" she invited him. "Speculate! Throw some ideas around!'

"Very well," he agreed. "The seal was manufactured in Hong Kong. There

is a little factory there that turns them out by the thousands. Jali

Hora bought it from a souvenir store in Luxor when he was on holiday in

Egypt last month."

She punched his arm, hard. "Be serious," she ordered.

can do better," he invited her, rubbing

"Let's hear if yo his arm.

"Okay, here I go. Taita dropped the seal here in the gorge while he was

working on the construction of Pharaoh's tomb. Three thousand years

later an old monk, one of the very first to live here at the monastery,

picked it up. Of course, he could not read the hieroglyphics. He -took

it to the abbot, who declared it to be a relic of St. Frumentius, and

had it set in the crown."

"And they all lived happily ever after," Nicholas agreed.

"Not a bad shot."

ny holes?" she demanded, and he shook Can you find a head. "Then you

agree that this proves that Taita really his was here, and that it

proves our theories are correct?" -Proves" is too strong a word. Let's

just say that it points in that direction," he demurred.

She wriggled around on the bed to face him squarely.

"Oh, Nicky, I am so excited. I swear I will not be able to sleep a wink

tonight. I just can't wait for tomorrow, to get out there and start

searching again."

Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks flushed a warm rosy brown. Her lips

were parted, and he could see the pink tip of her tongue between them.

This time he could not stop himself. He leaned very slowly towards her,

treating her gently, giving her every opportunity to pull away if she

wished to avoid him. She did not move, but her shining expression turned

slowly to one of apprehension. She stared into his eyes, as if seeking

something, some reassurance.

When their lips were an inch apart, Nicholas stopped, and it was she who

made the last movement. She brought their mouths together.

At first it was soft, just a light mingling of their breath, and then it

became harsher, more urgent. For a long, heartstopping moment they

devoured each other, and her mouth tasted soft and sweet as ripe fruit.

Then suddenly she whimpered, and with a huge effort of will tore herself

out of his arms. They stared at each other, both of them shaken and

confused.

"No," she whispered. "Please, Nicky, not yet. I am not ready yet."

He picked up her hand and turned it between his palms. Then lightly he

kissed the tips of her fingers, savouring the smell and the taste of her

skin.

"I'll see you in the morning." He dropped her hand and stood up. "Early.

Be ready!the said, and stooped out through the doorway of the hut.

was dressing the next morning he heard her moving a round in her hut,

and when he whistled softly at her door she stepped out to meet him,

dressed and eager to start.

"Boris is not awake yet,'Tessay told them as she served their breakfast.

"Now that is a great surprise to me," Nicholas said, without looking up

from his plate. He and Royan were still slightly awkward in each other's

presence, remembering the circumstances in which they had parted the

previous evening. However, as Nicholas slung the rifle and the pack 0

ver his shoulder and they set off up the valley, their mood changed to

one of anticipation.

They had been going for an hour when Nicholas glanced over his shoulder

and then cautioned her with a frown. "We are being followed."

Taking her wrist, he drew her behind a slab of sandstone. He flattened

himself against the rock and stured at her to do the same. Then he

poised himself, ge an suddenly leaped forward to seize the lanky figure

in a dirty white shamnw who was sneaking up the valley behind them. With

a howl the creature fell to his knees, and began gibbering with terror.

Nicholas hauled him to his feet. "Tamre! What are you doing following

us? Who sent you?" he demanded in Arabic.

The boy rolled his eyes towards Royan. "No, please, effendi, do not hurt

me. I meant no harm."

"Leave the child, Nicky. You will precipitate another fit," Royan

intervened. Tamre scurried behind her and clung to her hand for

protection, peering out around her shoulder at Nicholas as though his

life were in danger.

"Peace, Tamre," Nicholas soothed him. "I will not hurt you, unless you

lie to me. If you do, then I will thrash you until there is no skin on

your back. Who sent you to follow us?"

"I came alone. Nobody sent me," blubbered the boy. "I came to show you

where I saw the holy animal with the fingermarks -of the Baptist on his

skin."

Nicholas stared at him for a moment, before he began to laugh softly.

"I'll be damned if the boy doesn't really believe he saw

great-grandfather's dik-dik." Then he scowled ferociously. "Remember

what will happen to you, if you are lying."

"It is true, effendi," Tamre sobbed, and Royan came to his defence.

Don't badger him. He is harmless. Leave the poor , A hild."

"All right, Tamre. I will give you a chance. Take us to where you saw

the holy animal."

Tamre would not relinquish his grip on Royan's hand.

He clung to it as he danced beside her, leading her along, and within a

hundred yards his terror had faded and he was smiling and giggling at

her shyly.

For an hour he led them away from the Dandera rier and up over the high

ground above the valley, into an area of thick scrub and up-thrust

ridges of weathered limestone.

The thorny branches of the bush were densely intertwined, and grew so

close to the ground that there seemed to be no way through them.

However, Tamre led them on to a narrow twisting path, just wide enough

for them to avoid the red-tipped hook thorns on each side of them. Then

abruptly he stopped and pulled Royan to a halt beside him.

He pointed down, almost at his own toes.

"The riverPhe announced importantly. Nicholas came up beside them and

whistled softly with surprise. Tamre had led them around in a wide

circle to the west, and then brought them back to the Dandera river at a

point where it still ran in the bed of the deep ravine.

Now they stood on the very edge of the chasm. He saw at once that,

although the top of the rocky ravine was less than a hundred feet wide,

the chasm opened out below the rim. From the surface of the water far

below, the rock wall belled out in the shape of one of the pottery tej

flasks.

It narrowed again as it neared the top where they stood.

saw the holy thing over there."Tamre pointed to the far side of the

chasm where a small feeder spring meandered out of the thorny bush.

Streamers of bright green moss, nourished by the spring, hung from the

lip of the concave rock wall, and the water trickled down them and

dripped from the tips into the river two hundred feet below.

"If you saw it there, why did you bring us to this side of the

river?"Nicholas demanded.

Tamre looked as though he were on the point of tears.

This side is easier. There is no path through the bush on the other

side. The thorns would hurt Woizero Royan."

"Don't be a bully," Royan told him, and put her arm around the boy's

shoulder.

Nicholas shrugged, "It looks like the two of you are ganging up on me.

Well, seeing that we are here, we might as well sit a while and see if

great-grandpa's dik-dik puts in an appearance."

He picked out a spot in the shade of one of the stunted trees that hung

on the lip of the chasm, and with his hat swept the ground clear of

fallen thorns until there was a place for them to sit. He placed his

back against the trunk of the thorn tree and laid the Rigby rifle across

his lap.

By this time it was past noon, and the heat was stifling.

He passed the water bottle to Royan and, while she drank, glanced at

Tamre and suggested to her in English, "This might be a good time to

find out what, if anything, the lad knows about the Taita ceramic in the

crown. He is besotted with you. He will tell you anything you want to

know.

Question him."

She began gently, chatting softly to the boy. Occasionally she stroked

his head and petted him as though he were a puppy- She spoke to him of

the previous night's banquet, the beauty of the underground church, and

the antiquity of the murals and the tapestries, and then at last

mentioned the abbot's crown.

"Yes. Yes. That is the stone of the saint," he agreed readily. "The blue

stone of St. Frumentius."

"Where did it come from?" she asked. "Do you know?" The boy looked

embarrassed, "I do not know. It is very old, perhaps as old as Christ

the Saviour. That is what the priests say."

"You do not know where it was found?"

He shook his head, but then, eager to please her, he suggested, "Perhaps

it fell from heaven."

"Perhaps." Royan glanced at Nicholas, who rolled his eyes upwards and

then pushed his hat forward to cover his face.

"Perhaps St.. Frumentius gave it to the first abbot when he died." Tamre

warmed to the subject. "Or perhaps it was in his coffin with him when he

was placed in his tomb."

"All these things are possible, Tamre,' Royan agreed.

"Have you seen the tomb of St. Frumentius?"

He looked around him guiltily. "Only the ordained priests are allowed

into the tnaqdas, the Holy of Holies," he hung his head and whispered.

"You have seen it, Tamre," she accused him gently, stroking his head.

She was intrigued by the boy's guilt. "You can tell me. I will not tell

the priests."

"Only once," he admitted. "The other boys. They sent me to touch the

tabot stone. They would have beaten me if I had not. All the new

acolytes are made to do this." He began to babble with the horror of the

memory of his initiation ordeal. "I was alone. I was very afraid. It was

after midnight when the priests were asleep. Dark. The maqdas is haunted

by the ghost of the saint. They told me that if I was unworthy the saint

would strike me down with lightning."

Nicholas removed the hat from his face and straightened up slowly. "My

word, the child is telling the truth," he said softly. "He has been into

the Holy of Holies-'Then he looked across at Royan, "Keep questioning

him. He may just give us something useful. Ask him about the tomb of St.

Frumentius."

"Did you see the tomb of the saint?" she asked, and the boy nodded

vigorously. "Did you go into the tomb?" This time he shook his head.

"No. There are bars across the entrance. Only the abbot is allowed into

the tomb, on the birthday of the saint."

"Did you look through the bars?"

"Yes, but it is very dark. I saw the coffin of the saint. It is wood and

there is painting on it, the face of the saint."

"Is he a black man?"

"No - a white man with a red beard. The painting is very old. The

picture is faded, and the wood of the coffin is rotting and crumbling."

"Is it lying on the floor of the tomb?" Tamre screwed up his face in

thought, then after careful consideration shook his head. "No, it is on

a shelf of stone in the wall."

"Is there anything else you remember about the tomb of the saint?" Royan

tried to prod his memory, but Tamre shook his head.

"It was very dark, and the opening in the bars is small, he apologized.

"It does not matter. Is the tomb in the back wall of the rrtmdu?"

."Yes, it is behind the altar and the tabot stone."

"What is the altar made of - stone?"

"No. It is wood, cedarwood. There are candies, and a big cross, and the

many crowns of the abbot, and the chalice and staff."

"Is it painted?"

"No, it is carved with pictures. But they are different from the

pictures inside the tomb of the saint."

"What is different? Tell me, Tamre."

"I don't know. The faces are funny. They wear different clothes. There

are horses." He looked puzzled. "They are different."

Royan tried for a while to get a clearer description from him, but he

became more and more confused and contradictorywhen she pushed him, so

she changed tack.

"Tell me about the tabot," she suggested, but Nicholas forestalled her.

"No, you tell me about the tabot," he demanded of her.

"Is it similar to the Jewish Tabernacle?"

"Yes, at least in the Egypti She turned to him, an Church it is. It is

usually kept in a jewelled box and wrapped in an embroidered cloth of

gold. The only difference is that the Jewish Tabernacle is carved with

the ten commandments, but in our Church it is carved with the words of

dedication of the particular church that houses it.

It is the living heart of the Church."

"What is the tabot stone?" Nicholas frowned with concentration.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Our Church does not have a tabot stone."

"Ask him!

"Tell me about the tabot stone, Tamre."

"It is so high, and so square." He indicated a height of a little above

his own shoulder, and the width of his spread hands.

"And the tabot stands on top of this stone?" Royan guessed.

Tamre nodded.

"Why did they send you to touch the stone and not the tabot itself?"

Nicholas demanded, but Royan shook her head to silence him.

"Let me do the talking. You are too harsh with him. She turned back to

the boy. "Why the stone, rather than the Ark of the tabot that stands on

top of it?"

Tamre shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. They just did."

"What does the stone look like? Are there paintings on it also?"

"I don't know." He looked distraught at not being able to satisfy her.

He wanted desperately to please her. don't know. The stone is wrapped

with cloth."

Nicholas and Royan exchanged startled glances, and then Royan turned

back to the boy.

"Covered?" Royan leaned closer to him. "The stone is covered?, "They say

that it is only uncovered by the abbot on the birthday of St..

Frumentius."

Again Nicholas and Royan stared at each other, and then he smiled

thoughtfully. "I would rather like to have a look at the tomb of the

saint, and the tabot stone - in its uncovered state."

"You' have to wait for the saint's birthday," she said, she broke and

have yourself ordained. Only the priests off and stared at him again.

"You aren't thinking of - no, you wouldn't, would you?"

"Who, me?" he grinned. "Perish the thought."

"If they caught you in the maqdas, they would tear you to little

pieces."

"The answer, then, would be not to let them catch me."

"If you go, I am going with you. How are we going to manage it?"

"Throttle back, dear girl. The thought only occurred to me ten seconds

ago. Even on my good days, I need at least ten minutes to come up wit a

brilliant plan of action."

They both stared out across the chasm in silence, until Royan whispered

softly, "The covered stone. Taita's stone testament?"

"Don't say it aloud," he pleaded, and made the sign against the evil

eye. "Don't even think it aloud. The Devil is listening."

They were silent again, both of them thinking furiously. Then Royan

started, "Nicky, what if-' she broke off. "No, that won't. work." She

relapsed into frowning silence again.

Tamre broke the quiet with a sudden squeak of excitement, "There it is.

Look!'

They were both startled by the interruption. "What is it?" Royan turned

to him.

Tamre seized her arm and shook it. He was trembling with emotion. "There

it is. I told you." With his other hand he was pointing out across the

river, "There at the edge of the thorn bushes. Can't you see it?"

"What is it? What can you see?"

"The animal of John the Baptist. The holy marked creature."

Following the direction of his outflung arm, she picked out a soft,

brownish blur of movement at the edge of the thicket on the far bank. "I

don't know. It is too far-'

Nicholas scrabbled in his pack and brought out his binoculars. He lifted

and focused them, and then he began to chuckle.

"Hallelujah! Great-grandpa's reputation is safe at last." He passed the

binoculars to Royan. She focused them and found the little creature in

the field. It was three hundred yards away, but through the ten-power

lens she could make it out in detail.

It was almost half as large again as the common dikdik that they had

seen the previous day, and instead of drab grey its coat was a rich red

brown. Its most striking feature, however, was the distinct dark bars of

chocolate colour across its shoulders and back - five evenly spaced

markings that did indeed look like the imprint of fingers and thumb.

"Madoqua harperii, no less," Nicholas whispered to her.

"Sorry, great-grandfather, for doubting you."

The dik-dik stood half in shadow, wriggling its nose as it snuffled the

air. Its head was held high, suspicious and alert. The soft breeze was

quartering between them and the animal, but every so often a wayward

eddy gave it the faint whiff of humanity that had alarmed it.

Royan heard the snick of the rifle action as Nicholas worked the bolt

and chambered a round. Hurriedly she lowered the glasses, and glanced at

him. "You aren't going to shoot it?" she demanded.

"No, not at that range. Over three hundred yards, and a small target.

I'll wait for it to get closer."

"How can you bring yourself to do it?"

"How can I not? That's what I came here to do, amongst other things."

"But it's so beautiful."

"I take it, then, that it would be perfectly all right to whack it if it

were ugly?"

She said nothing, but raised the binoculars again. The eddy of the wind

must have changed, for the dik-dik lowered its head to nibble at a tuft

of coarse brown grass.

Then lifted its head again and came on down the clearing in the Thorn

scrub, stepping daintily, pausing every few paces to feed again.

"Go back. She tried to will it into safety, but it kept on coming,

meandering towards the edge of the chasm.

Nicholas rolled on to his stomach and settled himself behind the trunk

of the tree. He screwed up his hat into a soft pad on which to rest the

rifle.

"Two hundred yards," he muttered to himself "That's a fair shot. No

further." Resting the cushioned rifle on the twisted root, he aimed

through the telescopic sight. Then he lifted his head, waiting to let it

come within certain range.

Abruptly the dik-dik lifted its head again and came to a halt, quivering

with tension.

"Something he doesn't like. Dammit all, wind must have changed again,'

Nicholas growled. At that moment the little antelope bolted. It streaked

across the clearing, back the way it had come, and disappeared into the

thorn scrub.

"Go, dik-dik, go!" said Royan smugly, and Nicholas sat up and grunted

with disgust.

"I can't make out what frightened him." Then his expression changed and

he cocked his head. There was an alien sound on the air growing each

second - a harsh, rising clatter and a shrill, whining whistle.

"Chopper! What the hell!" Nicholas recognized the sound immediately. He

took the binoculars from Royan's hand and turned them to the sky,

sweeping the cloudless blue emptiness above the tops of the escarpment.

"There it is," he said grimly, adding, "Bell Jet Ranger," as he

recognized the profile. "Coming this way, by the looks of it. No point

in drawing attention to ourselves. Let's get under cover."

He shepherded Royan and the boy under the spread branches of the thorn

tree. "Sit tight," he told her. "No chance they will spot us under

here."

He watched the. approaching helicopter through the binoculars. "Probably

Ethiopian air force," he said softly.

"Anti-shufta patrol, most likely. Both Boris and Colonel Nogo warned us

that there are a lot of rebels and bandits operating down here in the

gorge-' he broke off abruptly.

"No. Hold on. That's not military. Green and red fuselage, and the red

horse emblem. None other than your old friends from Pegasus

Exploration."

The sound of the rotors crescendoed, and now with her naked eye Royan

could make out the flying horse on the fuselage of the helicopter as it

flew low across their front, half a mile out, headed down towards the

Nile.

Neither of them paid any attention to Tamre as he crouched behind Royan,

trying to hide behind her body.

His teeth were chattering with terror and his eyes rolled until the

whites showed.

"It looks as if our friend Jake Helm has got himself some fancy

transport. If Pegasus is in any way connected with Duraid's murder and

the other attempts on your life, then we can expect them to be breathing

heavily down our necks from now on. They are now in a position to

overlook us at will." Nicholas was still watching the aircraft through

the binoculars.

"When your enemy is up in the air, it gives you a helpless feeling."

Royan edged instinctively closer to him, staring up.

The green and scarlet machine disappeared over the hump of the subgorge,

down towards the monastery.

"Unless he's just on a joy-ride, he's probably looking for our camp,'

Nicholas guessed. "Under orders from the main man to keep tabs on us."

"He will have no trouble finding it. Boris made no attempt to conceal

the huts," Royan said uneasily. "Let's get out of here, then." She stood

up.

"Good plan." Nicholas was about to follow her, when suddenly he caught

her hand and drew her down again.

"Hold it. They are coming back this way."

The engine beat was rising again. Then they caught a glimpse of the

helicopter through the canopy of leaves and thorn branches overhead.

"Now he is following the river. Still searching for something, by the

looks of it."

"Us?"Royan asked nervously.

"If they are under orders from the head man, could be," Nicholas agreed.

The machine was very close now, and the shrill whine of the engine was

deafening.

At that moment Tamre's nerve broke. He let out a wail of terror, "It is

the Devil, come to take me; Save me, Jesus Christ the Saviour, save me!'

Nicholas put out a hand to restrain him, but he was not quick enough.

Tamre broke free and leaped to his feet.

Still howling with fear of the pit and the flames of hell, he darted

away down the path into the Thorn scrub, the skirts of his shamma

swirling about his skinny legs and his shiny black face swivelled back

over his shoulder to watch the approaching machine.

The pilot spotted him immediately, and the nose of the helicopter sank

in their direction. It came directly towards them, slowing as it

approached the lip of the chasm. They could make out the heads of the

two occupants behind the windscreen of the forward cabin. Still

decelerating, the aircraft hung suspended over the river, pivoting on

the spinning disc of its rotor, while Royan and Nicholas crouched down

in the scrub, trying to avoid detection.

"That's the American from the prospecting camp." Royan recognized Jake

Helm, despite the bulky radio earphones and the mirrored dark glasses.

He and the black pilot were craning their necks to search the river

banks.

"They haven't spotted us-' But even as Nicholas said it, Jake Helm

looked directly at them across the open void.

Although his expression did not change, he tapped the pilot's shoulder

and pointed down at them.

The pilot let the helicopter sink lower until it hovered in the opening

of the chasm, almost on the same level as they were. Only a hundred feet

separated them now. No longer making any attempt at concealment,

Nicholas leaned back against the hole of the Thorn tree. He tipped his

Panama hat forward over one eye and gave Jake Helm a laconic wave.

The foreman made no response to the greeting. He regarded Nicholas with

a flat, baleful stare, then struck a match and held the flame to the tip

of the half-smoked cigar between his lips. He flipped the dead match

away and blew a feather of smoke in Nicholas's direction. Still without

change of expression, he said something to the pilot out of the corner

of his mouth.

Immediately the helicopter rose vertically and banked away to the north,

heading back directly towards the wall of the escarpment and the base

camp on its summit.

"Mission accomplished. He found what he was looking for."Royan sat up.

"Us!'

"And he must have spotted the camp. He knows where to find us

again,'Nicholas agreed.

Royan shivered and hugged herself briefly. "He gives me the creeps, that

one. He looks like a toad."

"Oh, come on!" Nicholas chided her. "What have you got against toads?"

He stood up. "I don't think we are going to see great-grandfather's

dik-dik again today. He has been thoroughly shaken up by the chopper.

I'll come back for another try tomorrow."

"We should go and look for Tamre. He has probably had another fit, the

poor little fellow."

She was wrong. They found the boy beside the path.

He was still shivering and weeping, but had not suffered another

seizure. He calmed down quickly when Royan soothed him, and followed

them back towards the camp.

However, when they neared the grove he slipped away in the direction of

the monastery.

That evening, while it was still light, Nicholas took Royan back to the

monastery.

"I believe that the criminal fraternity refer to a reconnaissance of

this nature as "casing the joint"," he remarked, as they stooped through

the entrance of the rock cathedral and joined the throng of worshippers

in the outer chamber.

"From what Tamre says, it sounds as though the novices wait until they

know that the priests on duty are ones that will nod off during their

watch," Royan told him softly, as they paused to gaze through the doors

into the middle chamber.

"We don't have that sort of insider knowledge," Nicholas pointed out.

There were priests passing backwards and forwards through the doors as

they watched.

"There doesn't seem to be any sort of procedure," Nicholas noted. "No

password or ritual to allow them through."

"On the other hand, they greeted the guards at the door by name. It's a

small community. They must all know each other intimately."

"There doesn't seem any chance at all that I could dress up like a monk

and brazen my way through,'Nicholas agreed-A wonder what they do to

intruders in the sacred areas?"

"Throw them off the terrace to the crocodiles in the cauldron of the

Nile?" she suggested maliciously. "Anyway, you are not going in there

without me."

This was not the time to argue, he decided, and instead he tried to see

as much as possible through the open doors of the qiddist. The middle

chamber seemed much smaller than the outer chamber in which they stood.

He could just make out the shadowy murals that covered the portions of

the inner walls that he could see. In the facing wall was another

doorway. From Tamre's description, he realized that this must be the

entrance to the maqdas. The opening was barred by a heavy grille gate of

dark wooden beams, the joints of the cross-pieces reinforced with

gussets of hand hammered native iron.

On each side of the doorway, from rock ceiling to floor, hung long

embroidered tapestries depicting scenes from the life of St. Frumentius.

In one he was preaching to a kneeling congregation, with the Bible in

one hand and his right hand raised in benediction. In the other tapestry

he was baptizing an emperor. The king wore a high golden crown like that

of Jali Hora, and the saint's head was surrounded by a halo. The saint's

face was white, while the emperor's was black.

"Politically correct?" Nicholas asked himself, with a smile.

"What is amusing you?" Royan asked. "Have you thought of a way of

getting in there?"

"No, I was thinking of dinner. Let's go!

At dinner Boris showed no ill effects from the previous night's debauch.

During the day he had taken out his shotgun and shot a bunch of green

pigeons. Tessay had marinated these and barbecued them over the coals.

"Tell me, English, how was the hunting today? Did you get attacked by

the deadly striped dik-dik? Hey? Hey?" He bellowed with laughter.

"Did your trackers have any success?" Nicholas asked mildly.

."Da! Da! They found kudu and hushbuck and buffalo.

They even found dik-dik, but no stripes. Sorry, no stripes."

Royan leaned forward and opened her mouth to intervene, but Nicholas

cautioned her with a shake of the head. She shut her mouth again and

looked down at her plate, slicing a morsel from the breast of a pigeon.

"We don't really need company tomorrow," Nicholas explained mildly in

Arabic. "If he knew, he would insist on coming with us."

"Did your Mummy never teach you no manners, English? It's rude to talk

in a language that others can't understand. Have a vodka."

"You have my share," Nicholas invited him. "I know when I am

outclassed."

During the rest of the meal Tessay replied only in low monosyllables

when Royan tried to draw her into the conversation. She looked tragic

and defeated. She never looked at her husband, even when he was at his

loudest and most overbearing. When the meal ended, they left her sitting

with Boris at the fire. Boris had a fresh bottle of vodka on the table

beside him.

"The way he is pumping the liquor, it looks as if I might be called out

on another midnight rescue mission," Nicholas remarked as they made

their way to their own huts.

"Tessay has been in camp all day with him. There has been more trouble

between them. She told me that as soon as they get back to Addis Ababa

she is going to leave him.

She can't take any more of this."

"The only thing I find surprising is that she ever got mixed up with an

animal like Boris in the first place. She is a lovely woman. She could

pick and choose."

"Some women are drawn to animals," Royan shrugged.

"I suppose it must be the thrill of danger. Anyway, Tessay has asked me

if she can come with us tomorrow. She cannot stand another day in camp

with Boris on her own.

I think she is really afraid of him now. She says that she has never

seen him drink like this before."

"Tell her to come along, Nicholas said resignedly. "The more of us the

merrier. Perhaps we will be able to frighten the dik-dik to death by

sheer weight of numbers. Save me wasting ammunition."

It was still dark when the three of them left camp the next morning.

There was no sign of Boris and, when Nicholas asked about him, Tessay

said simply, "After you went to bed last night he finished the bottle.

He won't be out of his hut before noon. He won't miss me."

Carrying the Rigby, Nicholas led them tip into the weathered limestone

hills, retracing the path along which Tamre had taken them the previous

day. As they walked, Nicholas heard the two women talking behind him.

Royan was explaining to Tessay how they had sighted the striped dik-dik,

and what they planned.

The sun was well up by the time they again reached the spot under the

thorn tree on the lip of the chasm, and settled down to wait in ambush.

"How will you retrieve the carcass, if you do manage to shoot the poor

little creature?" Royan asked.

"I made certain of that before we left camp," he explained. "I spoke to

the head tracker. If he hears a shot he will bring up the ropes and help

me get across to the other side."

"I wouldn't like to make the journey across there." Tessay eyed the drop

below them.

"They teach you some useful things in the army, along with all the

rubbish," Nicholas replied. He made himself comfortable against the

thorn tree, the rifle ready in his lap.

The women lay close by him, talking together softly.

It was unlikely that the sound of their low voices would carry across

the ravine, Nicholas decided, so he did not try to hush them.

He expected that if it came at all, the dik-dik would show itself early.

But he was wrong. By noon there was still no sign of it. The valley

sweltered in the midday sun. The distant wall of the escarpment, veiled

in the blue heat haze, looked like jagged blue glass, and the mirage

danced across the rocky ridges and shimmered like the waters of a silver

lake above the tops of the thorn thickets.

The women had long ago given up talking, and they lay somnolent in the

heat. The whole world was silent and heat-struck. Only a bush dove broke

the silence with its mournful lament, "My wife is dead, my children are

dead, Oh, me! Oh, my! Oh, me!'Nicholas found his own eyelids becoming

leaden. His head nodded involuntarily, and he jerked it up only to have

it flop forward again. On the very edge of sleep he heard a sound, close

by in the thorn scrub behind him.

It was a tiny sound, but one that he knew so well. A sound that

whiplashed across his nerve endings and jerked him back to full

consciousness, with his pulse racing and the coppery taste of fear in

the back of his throat. It was the metallic sound of the safety-catch on

an AK-47 assault rifle being slipped forward into the "Fire' position.

In one fluid movement he lifted the rifle out of his lap and rolled

twice, twisting his body to cover the two women who lay beside him. At

the same time he brought the Rigby into his shoulder, aimed into the

scrub behind him from where the sound had come.

"Down!" he hissed at his companions. "Keep your heads down!'

His finger was on the trigger and, even though it was a puny weapon with

which to take on a Kalashnikov, he was ready to return fire. He picked

up his target immediately, and swung on to it.

There was a man crouched twenty paces away, the assault rifle he carried

aimed into Nicholas's face. He was black, dressed in worn and tattered

camouflage fatigues and a soft cap of the same material. His webbing

held a bush-knife and grenades, water bottle' and all the other

accoutrements of a guerrilla fighter.

"Shufta!" thought Nicholas. "A real pro. Don't take chances with this

one." Yet at the same time he realized that if the intention had been to

kill him, then he would be dead already.

He aimed the Rigby an inch over the muzzle of the assault rifle, into

the bloodshot right eye of the shufta behind it. The man acknowledged

the stand-off with a narrowing of his eyes, and then gave an order in

Arabic.

"Salim, cover the women. Shoot them if he moves.

Nicholas heard movement on his flank and glanced in that direction,

still keeping the shufta in his peripheral vision.

Another guerrilla stepped out of the scrub. He was all: similarly

dressed, but he carried a Soviet RPD light machine gun on his hip. The

barrel was sawn off short to make the weapon more handy for bush

fighting, and there was a loop of ammunition belt draped around his

neck. He came forward carefully, the RPD aimed point-blank at the two

women. Nicholas knew that, with a touch on the trigger, he could chop

them both to mincemeat.

There were other stealthy rustling sounds in the bush all around them.

These two were not the only ones, Nicholas realized. This was a large

war party. He might be able to get off one shot with the Rigby, but by

then Royan and Tessay would be dead. And he would not be far behind

them.

Very slowly and deliberately he lowered the muzzle of the rifle until it

was pointing at the ground. Then he laid the weapon down and raised his

hands.

"Get your hands up," he told the women. "Do exactly what they tell you."

The guerrilla leader acknowledged his surrender by coming to his full

height and speaking rapidly to his men, still in Arabic.

"Get the rifle and his pack."

"We are British subjects," Nicholas told him loudly, and the guerrilla

looked surprised by his use of Arabic. "We are simple tourists. We are

not military. We are not government people."

Be quiet. Shut your face!" he ordered, as the rest of the guerrilla

patrol emerged from cover. Nicholas counted five of them all told,

though he knew there were probably others who had not come forward. They

were very professional as they rounded up their prisoners. They never

blocked each other's field of fire, nor offered an opportunity of

escape. Quickly they searched them for weapons, then closed in around

them and hustled them on to the path.

"Where are you taking us?"Nicholas demanded.

"No questions!" The butt of an AK-47 smashed between his shoulder blades

and almost knocked him off his feet.

"Steady on, chaps," he murmured mildly in English.

"That wasn't really called for."

They were forced to keep marching through the heat of the afternoon.

Nicholas kept a check on the position of the sun and the distant

glimpses of the escarpment wall.

He realized that they were heading westwards, following the course of

the Nile towards the Sudanese border. It was late afternoon, and

Nicholas estimated that they had covered some ten miles, before they

came upon a side shoot of the main valley. The slopes were heavily

wooded, and the three prisoners were herded into a patch of this forest.

They were actually within the perimeter of the guerrilla camp before

they were aware of its existence. Cunningly camouflaged, it consisted

merely of a few crude lean, to shelters and a ring of weapons

emplacements. The sentries were well placed, and all the light machine

guns in the foxholes were manned.

They were led to one of the shelters in the centre of the camp, where

three men were squatting around a map spread on a low camp table. These

were obviously officers, and there was no mistaking which of the three

was the commander. The leader of the patrol which had captured them went

to this man, saluted him deferentially and then spoke to him urgently,

pointing at his captives.

The guerrilla commander straightened up from the table, and came out

into the sunlight. He was of medium height, but was imbued with such an

air of authority that he seemed taller. His shoulders were broad and his

body square and chunky, with the beginning of a dignified spread around

the waist. He wore a short curly beard which contained a few strands of

grey, and his features were refined and handsome. His skin tones were

amber and copper. His dark eyes were intelligent, his gaze quick and

restless.

"My men tell me that you speak Arabic," he said to -Nicholas.

"Better than you do, Mek Nimmur,'Nicholas told him.

"So now you are the leader of a bunch of bandits and kidnappers? I

always told you that you would never get to heaven, you old reprobate."

Mek Nimmur stared at him in astonishment, and then began to smile.

"Nicholas! I did not recognize you. You are older. Look at the grey on

your head!'

He opened his arms wide and folded Nicholas into a bear hug.

"Nicholas! Nicholas!" He kissed him once on each cheek. Then he held him

at arm's length and looked at the two women, who were standing amazed.

"He saved my life," he explained to them.

"You make me blush, Mek." Mek kissed him again' "He saved my life

twice."

"Once," Nicholas contradicted him. "The second time was a mistake. I

should have let them shoot you."

Mek laughed delightedly. "How long ago was it, Nicholas?"

"It doesn't bear thinking about."

"Fifteen years ago at least,'.Mek said. "Are you still in the British

army? What is your rank? You must be a general by now!'

"Reserves only," Nicholas shook his head. "I have been back in civvy

street a long time now."

Still hugging Nicholas, Mek Nimmur looked at the women with interest.

"Nicholas taught me most of what I know about soldiering," he told them.

His eyes flicked from Royan to Tessay, and then stayed on the Ethiopian

girl's dark and lovely face.

"I know you," he said. "I saw you in Addis, years ago.

You were a young girl then. Your father was Alto Zemen, a great and good

man. He was murdered by the tyrant Mengistu."

"I know you also, Alto Mek. My father held you in high esteem. There are

many of us who believe that you should be the president of this Ethiopia

of ours, in place of that other one." She dropped him a graceful little

curtsey, hanging her head in a shy but appealing gesture of respect.

"I am flattered by your opinion of me." He took her hand and lifted her

to her full height. Then he turned back to Nicholas, "I am sorry for the

rough welcome, Some of my men are over-enthusiastic. I knew that there

were ferengi asking questions at the monastery. But enough, you are with

friends here. I bid you welcome."

Mek Nimmur led them to his shelter, where one of his men brought a

soot-blackened kettle from the fire and poured viscous black coffee into

mugs for them.

He and Nicholas plunged into reminiscences of the days prior to the

Falklands war when they had fought side by side, Nicholas as a covert

military adviser, and Mek as a young freedom fighter opposing the

tyranny of Mengistu.

"But the war is over now, Mek, Nicholas remonstrated at last. "The

battle is won. Why are you still out in the bush with your men? Why

aren't you getting rich and fat in Addis, like all the others?"

"In the interim government in Addis there are enemies Of mine, men like

Mengistu. When we have got rid of them, then I will come out of the

bush."

He and Nicholas embarked into a spirited discussion of African politics,

so deep and complicated that Royan knew very few of the personalities

whom they were discussing. Nor could she follow the nuances and the

subtlety of religious and tribal prejudices and intolerance that had

persisted for a thousand years. She was, however, impressed by

Nicholas's knowledge and understanding of the situation, and the way in

which a man like Mek Nimmur asked his opinion and listened to his

advice.

In the end Nicholas asked him, "So now you have carried the war beyond

the borders of Ethiopia itself? You are operating in Sudan, as well?"

"The war in the Sudan has been raging for twenty years," Mek confirmed.

"The Christians in the south fighting against the persecution of the

Moslem nor the-"

"I am well aware of that, Mek. But that is not Ethiopia.

It's not your war."

"They are Christians, and they suffer injustice. I am a soldier and a

Christian. Of course it is my war." Tessay had ty to every word that Mek

spoke, and been listening avid now she nodded her head in agreement, her

eyes dark and solemn with hero worship.

"Alto Mek is a crusader for Christ and the rights of the common

man,'Tessa told Nicholas in awed tones.

"And he dearly loves a good fight," Nicholas laughed, punching his

shoulder affectionately. It was a familiar gesture which could easily

have given offence, but Mek accepted it readily and laughed back at him.

"What are you doing here yourself, Nicholas, if you are no longer a

soldier? There was a time when you also loved a good fight."

"I am completely reformed. No more fighting. I have come to the Abbay

gorge to hunt dik-dik."

"Dik-dik?l Mek Nimmur stared at him with disbelief, and then he roared

with laughter. "I don't believe it. Not you. Not dik-dik. You are up to

something."

"It is the truth."

"You are lying, Nicholas. You never could lie to me. I know you too

well. You are up to something. You will tell me about it when you need

my help."

"And you will still give me your help?"

"Of course. You saved my life twice."

"Once,'said Nicholas.

"Even once is enough," said Mek Nimmur.

while they talked, the sun slanted down the sky.

"You are my guests for tonight," Mek Nimmur told them formally. "In the

morning I will escort you back to your camp at the monastery of St..

Frumentius.

That is also my destination. My men and I are going to the monastery to

celebrate the festival of Timkat- The abbot, Jali Hora, is a friend and

an ally."

"And the monastery is probably your deep cover base.

You use it and the monks for resupply and intelligence.

Am I right?"

"You know me too well, Nicholas."Mek Nimmur shook his head ruefully.

"You taught me much of what I know, so why should you not be able to

guess my strategy? The monastery makes a perfect base of operations.

It's close enough to the border-' he broke off, smiling. "But there is

no need to explain it to you, of all people."

Mek had his men build a night shelter for Nicholas and Royan, and cut a

mattress of grass to cushion their sleep. They lay close together under

the flimsy roof. The night was sultry, and they did not miss their

blankets.

Nicholas had a tube of insect repellent in his pack to keep the

mosquitoes at bay After they had settled down on the grass mattress,

their heads were close enough together to allow them to converse in

quiet tones. When he turned his head Nicholas could see the dark

silhouettes of Mek Nimmur and Tessay still sitting close together by the

fire.

"Ethiopian girls are different from the Arabs, and from most other

African women." Royan too was watching the other couple. "No Arab girl

would dare be alone with a man like that. Especially if she were a

married woman."

"Any way you cut it, they make a damned fine pair," he gave his opinion.

"Good luck to them. Tessay hasn't had much of that lately - she is

overdue."

He turned his head and looked into her face, "What about you, Royan,

what are you? Are you a decorous, submissive Arab, or an independent,

assertive Western girl?"

"It's both a little early and much too late for intimate questions of

that nature," she told him, and turned over, presenting him with her

back.

"Ah, we are standing on ceremony this evening!

Goodnight, Woizero Royan."

"Goodnight, Alto Nicholas," she replied, keeping her face turned away

from him so that he could not see her smile.

The gorilla column moved out before dawn the next morning. They marched

in full battle order, with scouts moving ahead and flankers covering

each side of the path.

"The army come down here into the gorge very seldom, but we are always

ready for them when they do come," Mek Nimmur explained. "We try to give

them a hearty welcome."

Tessay was watching Mek Nimmur as he spoke; indeed, she had seldom taken

her eyes off him that morning. Now she murmured to Royan, "He is a truly

great man, a man who could unite our land, perhaps for the first time in

a thousand years. I feel humble in his presence, and yet I also feel

like a young girl again, filled with joy and hope."

The march back to the monastery took the entire morning. When they came

in sight of the Dandera. river, Mek Nimmur drew his men back off the

path into thick bush, while sending only one scout forward. After an

hour's wait, a party of acolytes came up from the monastery, each

carrying a large bundle balanced upon his head.

They greeted Mek with deep reverence, and handed over their bundles to

his men before returning down the pathway into the gorge of the Abbay.

The bundles contained priestly shammas, headcloths and sandals. Mek's

men changed out of their camouflage fatigues into these garments, all of

which were well worn and unwashed for the sake of authenticity. They

wore only their sidearms under the robes. All their other weapons and

equipment they cached in one of the caves in the limestone Cliffs, and

left a detachment to guard them.

Now as a party of monks they covered the last few miles to the

monastery, to be welcomed joyously by the community there. Here Nicholas

and the women left Mek, and climbed the steep path up into the grove of

wild fig trees. Boris was waiting for them, pacing about the camp, angry

and frustrated.

"Where the hell have you been, woman?" he snarled at Tessay. "Been

whoring around all night, have you?"

"We lost our way yesterday evening." Nicholas fed him the cover story

that they had agreed with Mek Nimmur, to maintain his security. Boris

was hardly the man to trust.

"And we were picked up by a party of monks from the monastery this

morning. They brought us back."

"You are the big hunter and tracker, are you?" Boris sneered at him.

"You didn't need me to guide you, hey? You got yourself lost, did you,

English? I see now why you want only to shoot dik-dik." He guffawed

without humour, and looked at Tessay with those pale dead eyes. "I will

talk to you later, woman. Go and see to the food."

Despite the heat, both Nicholas and Royan were hungry. In short order,

Tessay was able to serve a tasty cold lunch under the shady branches of

the fig trees. Nicholas refused the wine that Boris offered him.

want to go out hunting again this afternoon. I have lost almost a whole

day."

"You want me to hold your hand this time, English?

Make sure you don't lose yourself again?"

"Thanks, old chap, but I think I can manage without you."

While they ate Nicholas nudged Royan and told her, "Your admirer has

arrived."

He jerked his head at the lanky, ungainly figure of Tamre, who had

sneaked up quietly and was now sitting near the kitchen hut, As soon as

Royan looked at him his face split into a doting idiotic grin, and he

bobbed his head and squirmed with ecstatic shyness.

"I will not come with you this afternoon," Royan told Nicholas quietly,

when Boris was not listening. "I think there is going to be trouble

between him and Tessay. I want to stay here with her. Take Tamre with

you."

"My word, what an attractive alternative. All my life I have waited for

this moment." But when he had picked up his rifle and pack, he beckoned

the boy to follow him.

Tamre looked around eagerly for Royan, but she was in her hut. At last,

dragging his feet, he followed Nicholas up the valley.

"Take me to the other side of the river," he told the boy. "Show me how

to reach the side where the holy creature lives." Tamre perked up at the

prospect, and broke into a shambling trot as he led Nicholas over the

suspension bridge below the pink cliffs.

For an hour they followed the path, but gradually it petered out until

it ended in bad and broken ground amongst the erosion'carved hills.

Undeterred, Tamre plunged into the thorny scrub, and for another two

hours they scrambled over rocky ridges and through thorn-choked valleys.

"I can see why you didn't want to bring Royan this way here. You will

not move. You will not speak. You will even breathe very, very quietly,

until I come back to fetch you.

If you utter even one little prayer before I return, I will personally

start you on your journey to meet St.. Peter at the gates of heaven. Do

you understand me?"

He went forward alone, but the little antelope was thoroughly alarmed by

now Nicholas saw it twice more, but he only had fleeting glimpses of

ruddy brown movement almost entirely screened by bush. He stood

directing bitter imprecations towards the boy monk and listening to the

tick of small hooves on dry earth as it raced away, deeper into the

thickets. In the end he was forced to give up the hunt for that day.

It was after dark when he and Tamre got back to camp.

As soon as Nicholas stepped into the circle of firelight, Royan came to

meet him.

"What happened?" she asked. "Did you see the dik-dik again?"

"Don't ask me. Ask your accomplice. He scared it off.

It is probably still running."

"Tamre,'you are a fine young man, and I am very proud of you," she told

him. The boy wriggled like a puppy, giggling and hugging himself with

the joy of her approval as he scurried away down the path to the

monastery.

Royan was so pleased with the outcome of the hunt that she poured

Nicholas a whisky with her own hand and brought it to him as he sagged

wearily by the fire.

He tasted it and shuddered, "Never let a teetotaller pour for you. With

a heavy hand like that you should take UP tossing the caber or

blacksmithing." Despite the complaint, he took another tentative sip.

She sat close to him, fidgeting with excitement, but it was a while

before he became aware of her agitation.

"What is it? Something is eating you alive."

She threw a cautionary glance in the direction of where Boris sat on the

opposite side of the fire, and then dropped her voice, leaned close to

him and spoke in Arabic.

"Tessay and I went down to the monastery this afternoon to see Mek

Nimmur. Tessay asked me to go with her, just in case Boris - well, you

know what I mean."

"I have a vague idea. You were playing chaperone." Nicholas took another

sip of the whisky and gasped. He exhaled sharply and his voice was

husky. "Go on," he invited her.

"At one stage, before I left them alone together, we were discussing the

festival of Timkat. On the fifth day the abbot takes the tabot down to

the Abbay. Mek tells us there is a path down the cLiff to the water's

edge."

"Yes, we know that."

"This is the interesting part - this you didn't know.

Everybody joins the procession down to the river. Everybody. The abbot,

all the priests, the acolytes, every true believer, even Mek and all his

men, they all go down to the river and stay there overnight. For one

whole day and night the monastery is deserted. Empty. Nobody there at

all."

He stared at her over the rim of his glass, and then slowly he began to

smile, "Now that is very interesting indeed," he admitted.

"Don't forget, I am coming with you," she told him severely. "Don't you

dare to even think of leaving me behind."

Nicholas went to her hut again that evening after dinner. This was the

only place in camp where they could be sure of privacy, and where they

were safe from eavesdropping. However, this time he did not make the

mistake of sitting on her bed.

While she perched on the end of it, he took the stool opposite her.

"Before we start planning this thing, let me ask you one question. Have

you considered the possible consequences?"

"You mean, what happens if the monks catch us at it?" Royan asked.

"At the very least we can expect them to run us out of the valley. The

abbot has a tremendous amount of power.

At the worst we can be physically attacked," Nicholas told her. "This is

one of the most sacred sites in their religion, and don't underestimate

that fact. There is a great deal of danger involved. It could go as far

as a knife between the ribs, or something nasty in our food."

"We would also alienate Tessay. She is a deeply religious woman,'Royan

added.

"Even more importantly, we would probably outrage Mek Nimmur as well."

Nicholas looked distressed at the thought. "I don't know what he would

do, but I don't think our friendship would stand the test."

They were both quiet for a while, considering the cost that they might

have to pay. Nicholas broke the silence.

"Then again, have you considered your own position?

After all, it is your own Church that we will be desecrating.

You are a committed Christian. Can you justify this to yourself?"

"I have thought about it, she admitted. "And I am not altogether happy

about it, but it isn't really my Church. It's a different branch of the

Coptic Church."

"Splitting hairs, aren't we?"

"The Egyptian Church does not deny anyone access to even the most sacred

precincts of its church building. I do not feel myself bound by the

abbot's prohibition. I feel that as a believing Christian I have the

right to enter any part of the cathedral that I wish."

He whistled softly, "And you are the one who once said that I should

have been a lawyer."

"Please don't, Nicky. It's not something you should joke about. All I

know is that, no matter what, I have to go in there. Even if I die to do

it."

"You could let me do it for you," he suggested. "After all, I am an old

heathen. It would not spoil my chances of salvation. I don't have any."

"No." She shook her head firmly. "If there is an inscription or

something of that nature, I need to see it.

You read hieroglyphics quite well, but not as well as I do, and you

don't know the hieratic script. I am the expert you are just a gifted

amateur. You need me. I am going in there with you."

"All right. That is settled, then," he said with finality.

"Let's start planning. We had better draw up a list of equipment that we

may need. Flashlight, knife, Polaroid camera, spare film-'

"Art paper and soft pencils to lift an impression of any inscriptions,'

she added to the list.

"Hell!" He snapped his fingers with chagrin. "I didn't think to bring

any."

"See what I mean? Amateur. I did."

They talked on until late, and at last Nicholas glanced at his

wrist-watch and stood up.

"Long after midnight. I am scheduled to turn into a pumpkin at any

moment. Goodnight."

"There are still two days of the festival before the tabot is taken down

to the river. Nothing we can do until then.

What are your plans

"Tomorrow I am going back after that damned little Bambi. It has made a

fool of me twice already."

"I am coming with you," she said firmly, and that simple declaration

gave him a disproportionate amount of pleasure.

"Just as long as you leave Tamre at home," he warned her as he stooped

out through the door.

The tiny antelope stepped out from the deep shadow of the thorn thicket,

and the early morning sunlight gleamed on the silky pelt, It kept

walking steadily across the narrow clearing.

Nicholas's breathing quickened with excitement as he followed it with

the telescopic sight. It was ridiculous that he should feel so wrought

up with the hunting of such a humble little animal, but his previous

failures had sharpened his anticipation. Added to that was the peculiar

passion that drives the true collector. Since he had lost Rosalind and

the girls, he had thrown all his energy into the building up of the

collection at Quenton Park. Now, suddenly, procuring this specimen for

it had become a matter of supreme importance to him.