She looked at me penetratingly for a moment; and when she spoke her voice sounded less overwrought. "I'm almost afraid to touch him for fear of what it might do to him.'
We brought the stretcher over to him and, as gently as we could, lifted him on to it. We gave Talbot the truckle bed. When we had finished, the uncomfortable vacuum seemed once more to envelop us. This time it was Nadine who eased things.
'What we need is tea and something to eat. I'll fix it.'
The snack meal was a silent, strained little affair with only an occasional commonplace exchanged between us. Afterwards I sat on the rock floor by the cave entrance, meaning to keep watch over the terrain, on which the sun was beating remorselessly down. Nadine went inside. I loaded the magazine of Rankin's Mauser and put it by me – against what sort of contingency I wasn't quite sure. The unwinding process caught me unawares, and I fell asleep. It was dusk when I snapped into wakefulness. The Mauser had gone from my side and there was a soft leather cushion for my face to rest on.
Nadine sat ahead of me on a small stool, her chin, characteristically, cupped on her interlocked fingers. She was so still that for a moment I wondered if she too were asleep but she was in fact awake and staring fixedly at The Hill. It looked uglier and more menacing with, behind it, a setting sun as lurid as a film fake. A splendid tower of smoke hung over K2 and the remains of the plane. Its tip was chalk-rose in the sunset.
I remained motionless, not wishing to break the spell and wondering whether the things I had been through had really happened. There was only the faintest nimbus round her hair, which merged into the gathering darkness; her shirt was tinted yellow-gold at the shoulders. For a brief respite I felt good, good simply to be with her.
'Guy!'
The vignette of a few precious moments vanished: she swung round and got up. My sleep-soothed mind jerked into action at the imperative note in her voice.
I too now heard the distant sound and in a second was on my feet and with her at the parapet. It came intermittently, echoing among the fading hills.
'That's an airscrew.'
'Yes, Guy, it is! Listen! It's coming from somewhere over by the river!'
This could be salvation for Talbot and Rankin. We held our breaths. One moment the sound seemed close, the next far away. It was higher pitched than the Tiger Moth's engine.
'Someone must have spotted the smoke,' I said.
'It's much too soon for an air search; they won't know until tomorrow at the earliest that the Tiger Moth is missing. Peter and I flew from Pietersburg and that's hundreds of miles away to the south. We checked out a false destination on purpose to hide our trail. They won't dream of looking here.'
'I'd guess then that some other plane has come to investigate the smoke - we're right on the frontier.'
'The regular air route's far away near Messina . . . listen, Guy, it's stopped!'
The minutes ticked by. 'Nadine,' I said slowly. 'The most likely thing is that it's a relief plane come to pick up the guard .. I explained briefly about the murder at the hut.
'I begin to understand better now,' she replied sombrely. I wished I could see the expression on her face but it was really dark now.
'If it had been the guard plane, surely it would have made some signal to the hut?' she argued. 'And anyway it doesn't seem a very likely time of day to come and fetch the guard.' '
There it is again!'
The noise came through clearly but we could not pinpoint it.
'It seems very light for an aeroplane engine,' she remarked. '
But that's the sound of a propeller all right.'
'It's stopped again.'
'If it's cutting on and off it means the machine's in trouble–perhaps it knows about the airstrip and is trying to locate it for an emergency landing.'
We waited for it to resume but after ten minutes there was still nothing.
'We would surely have heard it if it had crashed?' she asked.
'Yes. In this stillness you can hear a jackal bark miles away. Also, there's no sign of a fire. Think what a pyre the Tiger made – we're bound to see it.'
After keeping our eyes skinned for another ten minutes from our grandstand perch we gave up. The uncertainty disrupted our discussion of further plans for Rankin and Talbot. It would have been stepping from the frying-pan into the fire to leave The Hill when help might be at hand. Nadine held out her powerful torch, but I shook my head. Though as concerned as she for the plane's safety, I knew that any signal from where we stood would mislead the pilot into disaster. And any attempt to make our way to the airstrip miles away at night through the bush would be futile. We decided to stay where we were until morning.
The tip of the plane's smoke pyre vanished with the full onset of night. The stars grouped themselves in epaulettes on The Hill's shoulders. Its bulk was invisible but we still sensed its dominion. At moonrise it would re-emerge, like a centurion standing athwart Africa.
The disappearance of the need for further action or consultation over the injured pair inevitably brought about the confrontation between us. I dreaded it but there was no escape. The long silence before she began was an ominous curtain-raiser.
I half expected her to reproach me or plead but she did neither.
'Guy,' she said, 'What I am going to say now is something I was reserving for the night we first make love. I've thought all along that would be the moment but I've changed my mind. I think you need to know it now that we're faced with a crisis in our love.'
Her quiet almost detached words about her own body being pledged to mine and the strong physical pull of her presence sent a powerful shock-wave of sexual charge through me. I yearned to see her face and eyes and slim figure but the hazed stars were too dim. The soundtrack of the African bush was silent.
'The queen and her ring are of course at the heart of it .. She smiled slightly, the first time since the crash . . . 'Oddly enough, those old dippers I stopped you drinking from are also involved. But I'm not doing this very well, kicking off at the end instead of the beginning.'
'The Hill's the start. I think we've all been so dazzled by its treasures – all that gold, the golden rhino and the crown and other stuff – that it's blinded us to another side which is equally important, if not more so.'
Her voice warmed and again I wished for some light, to see what I knew must be in her eyes.
'You remember how excited Dr Drummond became when I discovered the statuette?'
'I'll never forget that day, for more reasons than one.' She inclined towards me on her stool; the thing sparked between us like two joined electric terminals.
'Well, it was proof of something he had suspected for years although he'd no direct evidence. You were out for the count in hospital when this was going on. All the treasure was proof enough of The Hill's temporal power, but the statuette revealed the other side of the coin.'
'What do you mean, Nadine?'
'The Hill was a symbol of spiritual power throughout the whole of Africa south of the Sahara.'
'One statuette couldn't have proved all that.'
'No. But it confirmed Dr Drummond's suspicions. You see, years before, he'd found an ancient inscription hinting at a powerful force marching down Africa towards where we are now. It was led by a general or a king – maybe both offices were combined – who claimed he 'knew God'; and who demanded in the name of his God the allegiance of all the countries through which he travelled. And he got it. Backing this rallying-call was a quite remarkable political machine which enforced his rule. There's no doubt that he was some sort of oracular master-mind who gave supernatural revelations to the masses. Anyway, he surrounded himself with enough mystique and terror to ensure that long after he and his stronghold of The Hill had passed away he continued to hold superstitious sway over millions. Do you wonder The Hill is still regarded as taboo?'
'If all this is so, where is his grave? We both know that the one with the treasure was the queen's.'
'That's what is so curious�
�it never has been found'
I wondered where all this was leading. I couldn't see that it had much bearing on Nadine and myself.
I think she detected some impatience in my tone and hurried on.'Rankin's water dippers come into this – you wondered why I wouldn't let you use them?'
'I still do.'
'They're not for water at all. They're called funerary furniture. They come from a grave; not a human one.'
'I thought all graves were human.'
'The dippers were really sacred and symbolic things which were put in the grave of a bull which had been specially slaughtered and buried with elaborate ritual. The dippers are ritual urns and were cursed against being used by humans. It's known as a beast burial ceremony. The eggheads talk themselves into knots about them – all sorts of theories about their being relics of the bull cult of the Hamitic peoples of the Nile Valley, and so on endlessly. Yet here we have the same thing at The Hill, thousands of miles away, and not a trace of a link anywhere in Africa between. I think differently about them. You see, my . . . my heart tells me otherwise.'
I was still mystified, unable to equate anything she was saying with ourselves.
'I've put myself pretty ruthlessly in the mental dock since you left,' she went on. 'I couldn't just laugh you off, or the things which began our love. But I did ask myself whether I had allowed my emotions to run away with me.' She added, apparently at a tangent: 'But I know she did it for great love'
We both understood whom she meant but I repeated the word, to hear her explanation.
'She?'
'Our queen, Guy.' Now the answers tumbled out. 'When I saw it I realized that I had to have a ring like hers for our love too. I understood deep down that it was she who had offered the sacrifice . .
''Saw what, Nadine?'
'In all the other graves the bodies are buried in the traditional way: in a sitting position, arms flexed, chin on knees, facing north. Not she. She .. . she ..
'What are you trying to say?'
'She had them lay her body out- in the love-making position. She must have died after the king and she believed she was going to him again. They were both in their prime and it was their faith that they would meet again in the next world. And she expected him to make love to her. All the things the stuffy old professors call funerary urns aren't that at all. They're for her perfumes, her powders and her cosmetics. She wanted him to find her in death as he had done in life: beautiful, perfumed, lying waiting for his love. It was a lover's grave, Guy. Now do you understand about the ring? And the occasion when I had decided you should hear this from me?'
The picture of her standing in the trench flooded back to me. I was overwhelmed. I said the first thing that came to mind.
'What has all this to do with sacrifice?'
She started to reach out her hand to me but hesitated at the barrier still between us. Her words became a torrent.
'I should really thank you for what you did by walking out, Guy. You taught me to understand her. When a woman's heart cries out as mine did - and as hers must have done - it looks round for some physical thing to break in sympathy. It's just got to tell - the world, God, anyone - it's breaking. You've got to say it somehow or go mad. Her king went away in death and her heart burst. It's as if I had inherited her grief along with her ring. When a heart bleeds, there must be blood. I know. She found release in sacrifice. The difference between us is that I don't, like her, have to crash the barrier of death. That's why I'm here and I thank God I can still reach out and touch you.'
She choked and got up and went quickly to the stone parapet, staring in the direction of The Hill. I rose and went to her. Had I remained sitting, however, the invader could never have got past my gun and perhaps we might not have been drawn into the subsequent turmoil of events. ·
She said very slowly and deliberately. 'Since – you – went – away –'
The strange timbre of her voice was like the sound of bells muted by grief.
Four short, simple, terrible words, my darling: "since you went away":
I did not see, only sensed him. I wheeled round, every nerve taut. I saw the flicker of his shadow vanish into the cave. He had slipped past our backs.
I leapt for Rankin's Mauser and worked a bullet into the breech.
A voice commanded. 'Dika! Dika!'
Nadine and I swung towards the doorway.
'A charming fancy, don't you think?' said a mocking hidden voice. 'You have to dissect a hyena before you can tell its sex. My Dika could be male or female, I don't know. And Sappho's Dika – what was she? But I suspect that lesbianism is not unknown among hyenas either.'
He came forward so that I could make out the outline of his figure but not his face.
'I don't see any poetic wreaths or garlands for Dika but it's a pretty snug hideout you've got here. Without Dika I would never have found it.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
'Step forward!' I ordered, keeping the rifle trained on the newcomer. 'And stop talking crap. We're not a couple of gays.'
I was furious at the intrusion. That bare moment with Nadine might never come again.
'What the devil do you want? Who are you?'
Some quick calculation told me that, whoever he was, he couldn't have put down at the landing-strip some five miles away then made his way to the command-post in the time that had elapsed since we heard the aircraft engine. Moreover, if he had landed near The Hill in the sand and half-dark he had taken fantastic risks. Anyway, I did not believe it possible. His immediate discovery of the hidden command-post also added to my suspicions. All this, plus the off-beat introduction left me very uneasy. I was grateful for Rankin's Mauser.
Instead of obeying me he rapped out, 'Don't shoot! It's harmless if you leave it alone!'
One of the biggest hyenas I have ever seen slunk past me returning from the back of the cave to its master. I switched the gun from the man to the animal, following it all the way and ready to blast it. Except for lifting a lip in a silent snarl as it passed, it went to the stranger like a dog to heel. Before I could reply the off-beat, bantering tone came out of the darkness again. It also had a strident quality which later was to become inseparable in my mind from the manner of the man.
'Whatever is the lowest of four-legged creatures, the hyena must run it pretty close, don't you think? Yet look how this one responds to a little kindness – just like a pet. One could almost say that the quality of mercy is not strained but distilled . .
'Cut out the bull,' I retorted. 'If you're anything to do with the guard, say so, because I've much to tell you.'
I waved him forward with the gun and he came leading the hyena, a twist of its mane in his fingers.
Nadine shone a torch on the pair. He had a thinnish, somewhat elongated face which was dark with beard stubble. His narrow eyes were close together, his hair long. His lips were thin and leathery-looking beneath a prominent nose and receding forehead, and the eyebrows continued unbroken across the bridge of his nose. He held his head to one side as if he had a crick in the neck. He appeared to be about my own age. 'I apologize for the intrusion but the blame is really Dika's – you must have something very attractive in here, a dead buck perhaps? Dika couldn't restrain herself, or should I say himself or itself, once we reached the area of the fire. She took off nose to ground . .
It was a barrage of words; with the hindsight of later events. I know it covered a tight nervousness on his part as he realized that he had reached the end of his road.
I wasn't in the mood for this sort of thing. 'Your pet smells human blood,' I snapped. 'There's an injured man back there. The sooner you move that brute out, the better.'
'Allow me to introduce myself.' His speech was too correct to be mother-tongue English, yet he was not South African. The slight pseudo-bow and stiffening, however, betrayed his German origin.
'Von Praeger. Doctor Manfred von Praeger.'
His tension further revealed itself in the manner in which he tugged at Dika's mane;
I found myself revolted at the way the creature rubbed against him with a kind of brutish affection. The relationship put my teeth on edge. He waited, as if he expected us to reciprocate with our names, at the same time shooting me a penetrating glance. Before I could stop her Nadine asked, 'Are you a medical doctor?'
'I am.'
'Then you're a godsend at this moment. You see . . '
Wait a moment, Nadine.'
I had no intention of accepting von Praeger's help before I knew more about him. I was deeply suspicious of his stealthy approach. My experiences with Rankin had sensitized me. Nadine, however, took him at face value, without reservation.
'We heard your plane, Doctor von Praeger, and we were worried because the engine cut. We thought you might have crashed.'
He seemed taken aback for a moment, then amused. 'Ah, yes, the plane! It is difficult flying country this, is it not?' '
You weren't in trouble then?'
There were odd nuances in his reply and I didn't care for his forced, toothy smile. 'No. I managed . . . ah . . . to come safely to rest.'
Nadine hurried on. 'Peter Talbot – my father's pilot – has been hurt. We think he's pretty bad.'
Again I had the feeling that events were running away from me, though I conceded that what we needed right then was principally skilled aid for the two men. I allowed necessity tc lull my suspicions; if von Praeger could achieve something with Rankin I could still get my confession. Once that was done, we could sort the rest out later.
'Where is the man?'
(Praeger seemed too keen to investigate the command post) '
Wait here – there's no light back there,' I said. 'And please do something about that hyena before I bring Talbot out.' 'I also have a torch. Two of them will give plenty of light for me to examine him by.'
I held back irresolutely, wondering if I were doing the right thing. My mental hackles bristled again at his remark. If he'd used his torch across the wadi and up the slope of K2 to the plane wreck we certainly would have spotted him.
'This is the way I want it,' I said shortly.
He gave his slightly stiffened inclination in reply. It didn't give anything away.
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