The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 78

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awake listening for more gunfire in the night.

Royan began to stir at the first lemon and orange flush of dawn in the

eastern sky, and while they ate the remains of the survival rations for

their breakfast he told her about the noise that had woken him during

the night.

"Do you think it could have been Boris?" she asked.

"He May have caught up with Mek and Tessay."

"I doubt that very much. Boris has already been gone several days. He

should be well out of earshot by now, even beyond the sound range of the

heaviest weapons."

"Who do you suppose it was, then?"

"I have no idea. But I don't like it. We should start back to camp as

soon as we have had another look around the quarry. After that there is

nothing further that we can do at this stage. We should make tracks for

home and mother."

As soon as the light was strong enough, Nicholas shot a spool of film to

make a record of the quarry. For ison of scale, Royan posed beside

compar the wall in which the embryonic blocks still lay. As she warmed

to her role as a model she started to clown for him. She climbed on to

the biggest of the slabs and hammed it up for the camera, pouting with

one hand behind her head in the style of Marilyn Monroe.

When, finally, they went off down the valley towards the monastery they

were both exultant and garrulous after their success. Their discussion

was animated as they bounced ideas back and forth, and laid their plans

for the further exploitation of these wonderful discoveries.

By the time they reached the pink cliffs at the lower end of the chasm

it was late morning. There they met a small party of monks from the

monastery coming up the trail.

Even from a distance it was obvious that something dreadful had happened

during their absence: the sorrowful ululations of the monks sent chills

down Royan's spine.

It was the universal African sound of mourning, the harbinger of death

and disaster. As they approached they saw that the monks were picking up

handfuls of dust from the track and pouring it over their heads as they

wailed and lamented.

"What is it, Tamre?" Royan asked the boy. "Go and find out for usP Tamre

ran ahead to meet his brother monks.

They stopped in the middle of the path and fell into a high-pitched

discussion, weeping and gesticulating. Then Tamre ran back to them.

"Your people at the camp. Something terrible has happened. Bad men came

in the might. Many of the servants are dead," he screamed.

Nicholas grabbed Royan's hand. "Come on!" he snapped, "let's find out

what is going on here."

They ran the last mile to the camp, and arrived to find another circle

of monks gathered around something in front of the kitchen hut.

Nicholas pushed them aside and elbowed his way to the front. There he

stopped and stared with a sinking feeling in his gut, and the sweat on

his face turned cold with horror. Under a buzzing blue pall of flies lay

the bloodsplattered corpse of the cook and three other camp servants.

Their hands had been bound behind their backs, and then they had been

forced to kneel before being shot in the back of the head at close

range.

"Don't lookV Nicholas warned Royan as she came up.

"It's not very pretty."

But she ignored his advice and came to stand beside him. "Oh, sweet

heavens. They have been slaughtered like cattle in an abattoir," She

gagged.

"This explains the sound of gunfire that I heard last night," he

answered grimly. He went forward to identify the dead men. "Aly and Kif

are not here. Where are they?" He raised his voice and called in Arabic,

turning to face the crowd. "Aly, where are you?"

The tracker pushed his way forward. "I am here, effendi." His voice was

shaky and his face was haggard. "Mere was blood on the front of his

shirt.

"How did this happen?" Nicholas seized his arm and steadied him.

"Men came in the night with the guns. Shufta. They shot into the huts

where we were sleeping. They gave us no warning. They just started

shooting.

"How many of them? Who were they?" Nicholas demanded.

"I do not know how many of them there were. It was dark. I was asleep. I

ran away when the shooting began.

They were shufta, bandits, killers. They were hyenas and jackals - there

was no reason for what they have done.

These men were my brothers, my friends." He began to sob, and the tears

streamed down his face.

Royan turned away, sickened and horrified. She went to her hut and

stopped in the doorway. It had been ransacked. Her bags had been turned

out on to the floor.

Her bedding had been stripped, and the mattress thrown into the corner.

As though she were a sleepwalker in a nightmare, she crossed the floor

and picked up the canvas folder in which she kept her papers. She turned

it upside down and shook it. It was empty. The satellite photo graphs

and the maps, all her rubbings of the stele, the Polaroids that Nicholas

had taken in Tanus's tomb - everything was gone.

Royan picked up the bed and set it the right way up.

She sat down on it, and tried to gather her thoughts. She felt confused

and shaken. The image of those bloody, bullet-ripped corpses laid out in

front of the kitchen haunted her, and she found it difficult to

concentrate and to think clearly.

Nicholas burst into her hut and looked around quickly.

"They did the same thing to me. Ransacked the place. My rifle has gone,

and all my papers. But at least I had the passports and travellers'

cheques in my day-pack-' He broke off as he saw the empty canvas folder

lying at her feet. "Have they taken the-'

"Yes!" she forestalled his question. "They have cleaned out all our

research material, even the Polaroids. Thank God you had the undeveloped

rolls of film with you. It's the same as happened to Duraid and me all

over again. We aren't safe from them, even here,'even out in the

remotest part of the bush." There was the edge of hysteria in her voice.

She jumped up from the bed and ran to him.

"Oh, Nicky, what would have happened if we had been in camp last night?"

She threw her arms around him, and clung to him. "We would be lying out

there in the sun now, all bloody and covered with flies."

"Steady on, my dear. Let's not jump to any conclusions.

This could just be a chance raid by bandits."

"Then why did they steal our papers? What value would ordinary shtifta

place on rubbings and Polaroids?

Where was the Pegasus helicopter heading just before the raid? They were

after us, Nicky. I feel it so strongly. They wanted to kill us just as

they did Duraid. They could return at any time, and now we are unarmed

and helpless."

"All right, I agree with you that we are pretty vulnerable here. It

would be wise to get out as soon as possible.

There isn't any point in staying on here anyway. There's nothing more we

can do at this stage." He hugged her and shook her gently. "Brace up! We

will salvage what we can from this mess, and then get moving back to the

vehicles right away."

"What about the dead men?" She stood back, and with an effort forced

back her, tears and brought herself under control. "How many of our

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