by Wilbur Smith
‘Don’t be a baby, Yassie.’ Unconsciously he used the same words with which Tom had chided him. ‘Shaitan does not concern himself with monkeys and small females.’
‘What are we going to do?’ Yasmini turned those haunted honey-coloured eyes on him with absolute trust.
‘We will start again at the tomb. Jinni must be somewhere.’
The entrance to the tomb had been bricked and plastered closed centuries before, and though Dorian examined it minutely there was no hole through which even a monkey could pass. They went up onto the terrace and searched that again. Though they called until they were hoarse, there was still no sign of Jinni.
At last they sat in despair on the edge of the cistern and avoided each other’s eyes, tired and dispirited. If they had not been absolutely silent they would never have heard the faint chittering. They heard it at the same time and Yasmini seized Dorian’s arm, sinking her sharp little nails into his skin.
‘Jinni!’ she whispered.
They jumped down from the cistern and stared about eagerly, their tiredness forgotten. The sound seemed to emanate in the air around them, without any focal point.
‘Where is it coming from, Dowie?’ Yasmini asked, but he shushed her imperiously. Holding up a hand for silence, he tracked the faint sound across the terrace. When it stopped he whistled, and immediately Jinni called again, leading him to the far end.
There they seemed to reach a dead end, until Dorian went down on his knees and crawled along the juncture of the dome wall and the skirting of the terrace where Jinni’s cries were perceptibly louder. Weeds and creepers blanketed the area, but he picked out a track through them that looked as though somebody or something had recently passed that way. He moved in, bending the weeds aside and lifting the dangling creepers to inspect the base of the dome wall.
He saw at once that the coral rag had disintegrated at one point and that there was an aperture large enough for Jinni to have squeezed through. When he put his ear to this opening his last doubts were dispelled. Jinni’s cries were magnified as though by a speaking tube. ‘He’s down there!’ he told Yasmini.
She clapped her hands joyfully. ‘Can you get him out, Dowie?’ Then she placed her mouth to the hole and shouted down it, ‘Jinni, my baby! Can you hear me?’ She was answered by faint but excited squeaks from the depths of the hole.
‘Get out of the way.’ Dorian pushed her aside, and began to work at enlarging the hole with his bare hands. The ragging was unmortared, and chunks of it came away in his hands. He sent Yasmini to bring him one of the bamboo staves from the pile at the bottom of the steps, and used this to prise out the more stubborn chunks of brick.
Within half an hour he had enlarged the opening enough so that he could squeeze through. However, when he peered down into the depths all he could see was the swirling dust of his labours, and darkness. ‘Wait here, Yassie,’ he ordered, and lowered his legs into the opening. Although he kicked around he was unable to touch the bottom or find a foothold. He clung to the lip with both hands and let himself down an inch at a time. Abruptly the section of the wall he was holding broke away, and with a shout of alarm he fell into the dark. He expected to plunge down hundreds of feet to his death, but he dropped only inches before he hit the ground. The impact was so unexpected that his legs gave way under him and he fell in a heap. He scrambled up.
Yasmini was calling down urgently, ‘Are you all right, Dowie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I come down?’
‘No! You stay there. Take your head out of the way to let the light in.’
When the dust had settled and his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he surveyed his surroundings. A faint ray of sunlight came from the opening above him and by its light he found himself in a narrow passage, which seemed to have been built into the centre of the massive outer wall of the tomb. It was just wider than his shoulders and high enough for him to stand upright.
Jinni’s cries came from close at hand and he moved towards them, sneezing. Dorian found a wooden door, which shut off the passage. It was crumbling with age and damp mould, and it had fallen off its rotten leather hinges. Jinni must have swung on it, and even his small bulk had been enough to bring it down. Now he was trapped under it.
He had torn his fingernails on the wood trying to free himself, and his fur was thick with dust and wood chips. Dorian tugged and heaved at the heavy door, lifting it enough for the monkey to wriggle out from under it. Jinni was not injured and he shot up Dorian’s body and onto his shoulder where he clung to his neck with both arms, chattering with relief.
‘You stupid animal,’ Dorian scolded in English, as he stroked Jinni’s head to quieten him. ‘This will teach you not to go wandering off to where you should not go, you idiot monkey.’
He carried him back and handed him up to Yasmini, who was hanging head and shoulders through the hole. Then he went back, lifted one end of the door and dragged it back. He leaned it against the wall of the passage and used it as a ladder to climb back through the opening into the sunlight.
He was covered with dust and dirt, so while Yasmini smothered Jinni in a loving embrace, he washed away the worst of the filth in the waters of the cistern.
Yasmini carried Jinni down the steps, but before he followed them Dorian went back on an impulse and arranged the weeds and the flowering creeper to conceal the hole in the base of the dome.
It was some days later that Dorian went back to explore the further reaches of the secret passage. He should never have told Yasmini what he planned, for she insisted on coming with him and bringing Jinni. Without letting Tahi know, Dorian took one of the lamps, and a steel and flint to light it.
They went through elaborate precautions to make certain that they were not followed by any of Kush’s spies or henchmen, taking separate routes to the old tomb and meeting beside the cistern.
‘Nobody followed you?’ Dorian demanded, as Yasmini scuttled up the stairs with Jinni riding on her shoulder.
‘Nobody!’ she confirmed, almost dancing with excitement. ‘What do you think we will find, Dowie? A great treasure of gold and jewels?’
‘A secret room full of skulls and old bones,’ he said, teasing.
She looked apprehensive. ‘Will you go first?’ she asked, and took his hand.
They crept into the weeds and pulled them closed behind them, then Dorian lifted the creepers from the entrance to the passage and peered into the darkness. ‘It’s safe. Nobody has found it.’ He squatted and worked with the flint and steel. When the lamp flame was burning evenly, he said, ‘Pass it down to me when I tell you.’ He lowered himself into the opening, and looked up. ‘Give me the lamp.’ He took it from her hands and set it out of the way. ‘Now come down.’
He guided her dangling feet, placing them on the old door. ‘You’re nearly there. Jump!’
She hopped down and looked about her. Jinni came darting after her and shot up her leg. There was not enough headroom for him to ride on her shoulder so she took him on her hip. ‘This is so exciting. I have never done anything like this before.’
‘Don’t make so much noise.’ Dorian picked up the lamp. ‘Now stay close behind me, but don’t get in my way.’
He moved cautiously to where the old door had stood, but felt a slide of disappointment when he saw that the passage had been bricked shut only a few yards further on. It was a dead end.
‘What is beyond the bricks?’ Yasmini asked, in a whisper.
‘It looks as if it once led into the tomb itself, but somebody closed it off. I wonder why they built it anyway.’
‘So that the Angel Gibrael could come into the tomb to take the soul of the saint to Paradise,’ Yasmini told him, with authority. ‘Gibrael always comes down to fetch the souls of righteous men.’
Dorian was on the point of ridiculing her, when he saw how large and liquid her eyes looked in the light of the lamp. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he agreed. ‘But I wonder where the other end of the passage leads to.’
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They turned, passing under the opening through which they had entered and went on slowly into the dusty darkness, which smelt of fungus and mould. In the feeble yellow lamplight the floor beneath their feet began to slope downwards and every few paces there were stone steps descending. The roof was only inches above Dorian’s head.
‘I’m frightened,’ Yasmini whispered breathlessly. ‘Perhaps the Angel will be angry with us for using his road.’ She hugged Jinni close to her chest. With her other hand she reached out and took a firm grip on the back of Dorian’s kanzu.
They moved on quietly. The passage continued to angle downwards until Dorian guessed that they were well below ground level, then it levelled out and ran straight. He counted the paces.
‘What happens if the roof falls in?’ Yasmini asked.
‘It’s been here for hundreds of years,’ Dorian said confidently. ‘Why would it suddenly fall in now?’ He went on, counting the paces aloud.
‘Three hundred and twenty-two,’ he announced, then said, almost immediately, ‘Look, there are steps going up again.’
They climbed them slowly. Dorian paused on each tread and held the lamp high to survey the way ahead. Suddenly he stopped again. ‘It’s blocked,’ he said, with heavy disappointment. In the lamplight they saw that the roof and one of the side walls had fallen in. They stood uncertainly, staring at the tumbled masonry.
Suddenly Jinni jumped down from Yasmini’s hip and darted forward. Before Dorian could grab his tail he disappeared into a small opening between the intact part of the roof and the pile of rubble.
‘Jinni!’ Yasmini pushed past Dorian and thrust her arm into the opening. ‘He will get stuck again. Save him, Dowie.’
‘Stupid monkey!’ Dorian started clearing the masonry and trying to reach inside. Every few minutes they heard Jinni calling, but he would not come back to Yasmini though she pleaded with him. Dorian worked on doggedly, clearing the rubbish from the tunnel ahead. Then he stopped and climbed onto the heap. ‘I can see light ahead.’ He was jubilant. He jumped down and redoubled his efforts to clear away the rubble that still blocked the tunnel.
An hour later he wiped his face on the hem of his kanzu. His sweat had mingled with the dust into a paste of mud.
‘I think I can crawl through now.’ He worked his way, belly down, into the enlarged opening, and apprehensively Yasmini watched his body, then his legs and finally his feet disappear from view. Moments later he called, ‘Yassie! It’s all right. Come on.’
She was so much smaller than him that she could crawl on hands and knees. Within a short distance the light strengthened and she found Dorian squatting at the exit to the tunnel. A veil of vegetation hung down in front of them, but beyond that was brilliant sunlight.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, crowding in beside him.
‘I don’t know.’
Cautiously he parted the green foliage. They were in a saucer of ground, surrounded by fallen walls of coral bricks disintegrated by time and weather. The whole area was heavily overgrown. ‘Stay there,’ Dorian told her, and crept out into the sunlight. Gingerly he climbed to the top of the ruin and looked out. He saw palm trees and green mangrove forest and beyond that a glimpse of white beach and the vivid blue ocean. He recognized the area from his explorations outside the walls. ‘We are outside the zenana,’ he said, with astonishment. ‘The tunnel goes under the wall.’
‘I have never been outside in my whole life.’ Yasmini climbed up beside him. ‘Look, is that the beach? Can’t we go down there, Dowie?’
They heard voices, and ducked down. A party of women passed below their hiding-place without looking up. They were Swahili slave-girls, black and unveiled, with huge bundles of firewood balanced on their heads. They passed and their voices faded.
‘Can we go down to the beach, Dowie?’ Yasmini pleaded. ‘For only a short time. Just this once.’
‘No! You’re a silly girl,’ Dorian said sternly. ‘The fishermen will see us and they’ll tell Kush. Then there will be another grave in the cemetery. You know what happens to little girls who defy him.’ He scrambled back into the mouth of the tunnel. ‘Come on.’
‘Perhaps it is the will of God that I should never swim in the ocean with you,’ she said wistfully, still gazing down through the trees.
‘Come down, Yassie. We must go back.’
Her words troubled him. Every time he went down to the beach by himself and swam out over the reef he felt guilty, and though she did not mention it again her appeal preyed upon his mind.
Over the weeks that followed he quietly scouted the area outside the east wall of the zenana, and found that there were many overgrown ruins among the trees. They were mostly covered with undergrowth, or by the sand dunes blown up from the beach by the monsoon. It took him some days to find the exact clump of bushes and old coral rag that hid the mouth of the tunnel. When he was certain that he was not being watched he climbed over the heap and down to the opening in its saucer.
He spent several hours working to clear the entrance so that access was easier and safer, then covered it again with fallen palm fronds and dried branches to hide it from casual discovery by the Swahili wood gatherers.
From his friend Mustapha, the groom at the stables, he begged a grubby, tattered kanzu, more patches than original material, and an equally filthy keffiya, which even the groom would no longer wear. He rolled these into a bundle and hid it in the exit of the tunnel. He waited until the moon was full, and then, when all was ready, he asked Yasmini, ‘Would you really like to swim in the ocean?’
She stared at him in astonishment, and then her small face crumpled. ‘Don’t tease me, Dowie,’ she pleaded.
‘This evening you will come to eat dinner with Tahi and me. After the Maghrib prayers, you will thank Tahi and tell her that you are going back to your mother. Instead you will come here and hide behind the cistern.’ Slowly her face lit up and her eyes sparkled. ‘Your mother will think you are with Tahi, and Tahi will think you are with your mother. I will follow you shortly and find you here.’
‘Yes, Dowie.’ She nodded vigorously.
‘You will not be frightened to come here in the dark, on your own?’
‘No, Dowie.’ She shook her head so vehemently that it seemed she might loosen it from her shoulders.
‘You cannot bring Jinni. He must stay in his cage. Do you promise me?’
‘I promise you with all my heart, Dowie.’
At dinner Yasmini was so restless and talkative that Tahi studied her shrewdly. ‘What ails you, child? You’re jabbering like a flock of parakeets and bouncing around as though you have a hot coal in your trousers. Have you been out in the sun again without a covering for your head?’
Yasmini gobbled down the last of the meal, scooping it from the bowl with the fingers of her right hand. Then she jumped up. ‘I must go, Tahi. My mother charged me to return early.’
‘You have not finished your food. I have your favourite, grated coconut cakes with saffron.’
‘I’m not hungry tonight. I must go. I will come again tomorrow.’
‘Your prayers first.’ Tahi restrained her.
‘All praise and thanks to the Almighty Allah for having given us to eat and drink, and having made of us Muslims,’ Yasmini gabbled, and sprang to her feet. She was out of the room before Tahi could stop her again.
Dorian waited a short time, then stood up and stretched nonchalantly. ‘I’m going for a walk in the gardens.’
Immediately Tahi was all concern. ‘Remember to be very careful, al-Amhara. Do not think that Kush has forgiven you.’
Dorian retreated swiftly to avoid any further advice.
‘Yassie?’ he called softly, as he crept up the staircase to the terrace. His voice quavered and cracked: it had been playing tricks on him for a while now, in moments of nervousness or emotion, jumping up and down the scale. ‘Yassie?’ This time it came out gruffly.
‘Dowie! I am here.’ She crawled out from behind the cistern, and ran to m
eet him. The moon was just rising above the outer wall of the zenana, and by its light Dorian led her to the opening to the Angel’s Road, as they had named their secret passage. He lowered himself into it and found the lamp, the flint and steel where he had left them. When the wick was burning evenly he called Yasmini down and caught her small body as she came sliding down the old door. She pressed close behind him, hanging on to the back of his robe as he led her along the tunnel.
When they reached the collapsed section that he had cleared Dorian snuffed out the wick of the lamp. ‘We must not show any light,’ he warned her. They groped their way along the wall for the last few yards, and at last they could see the luminescence of the moon through the trailing creepers that masked the exit of the tunnel. Dorian searched for the bundle of old clothes he had hidden in a niche in the tunnel wall.
‘Here! Put these on,’ he ordered.
‘They are smelly!’ she protested.
‘Do you want to come with me or not?’
She did not argue again, but there was the rustle of cloth as she stripped off her own clothes, and pulled the kanzu over her head.
‘I am ready,’ she said eagerly.
He led her out into the moonlight. The robe was too big for her. She tripped over the skirts. He knelt in front of her and ripped away the hem at the level of her ankles, then helped her arrange the keffiya over her head to hide her long hair. ‘That will do,’ he said as he looked her over. She looked like any one of the ragged urchins that ran wild through the streets of the town or along the beaches. The son of a fisherman, perhaps, or one of the gatherers of firewood or mangrove bark. ‘Come on!’