Sheba. Part 10

- others buried beneath the sand of centuries.'

'So archaeology is still your first love,' she said.

'Very much so, but we didn't come here to talk about me, Mrs Cunningham. Isn't it time we got on to the subject of your husband?'

She took a slim gold case from her purse, selected a cigarette and tapped it thoughtfully against her thumbnail. 'It's difficult to know where to begin.' She laughed ruefully. 'I suppose I was always rather spoilt.'

Kane nodded. 'It sounds possible. What about your husband?'

She frowned. 'I met John Cunningham back home at some function or other. He was an Englishman from the School of Oriental Studies in London, lecturing at Harvard for a year. We got married.'

Kane raised his eyebrows. 'Just like that?'

She nodded. 'He was tall and distinguished and very English. I'd never met anything quite like him before.'

'And when did the trouble start?'

She smiled slightly. 'You're very perceptive, Captain Kane.' For a few moments she stared down into her gla.s.s. 'To be perfectly honest, almost straight away. I soon discovered that I'd married a man of strong principles, who believed in standing on his own two feet.'

'That sounds reasonable enough.'

She shook her head and sighed. 'Not to my father. He wanted him to join the firm, and John wouldn't hear of it.'

Kane grinned. 'Well, bully for John. What happened after that?'

She leaned back in her chair. 'We lived in London. John had a research job at the University. Of course it didn't pay very much, but my father had given me a generous allowance.'

'To enable you to live in the style to which you were accustomed?' he said, and there was something suspiciously close to amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.

She flushed slightly. 'That was the general idea.'

'And your husband didn't like it?'

She got to her feet, walked to the parapet and looked out across the harbour. 'No, he didn't like it one little bit.' Her voice was flat and colourless, and when she turned to face him, he realized she was very near to tears. 'He accepted the arrangement because he loved me.'

She came back to the table and sank down into her chair. Kane gently placed his hand on hers. 'Would you care for another drink?' She shook her head slightly and he shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

She pushed a tendril of hair back into place with one hand in a quick, graceful gesture and continued, 'You see, my father was a self-made man. He had to fight every inch of the way and he told John pretty plainly that he didn't think much of him.'

'And how did that affect your husband?'

She shrugged. 'I insisted on living in the way I'd been used to, and it took my own money to do it. John began to feel inadequate. Gradually he withdrew into himself. He spent more and more time at the University on his research. I think, in some crazy kind of way, he hoped he might make a name for himself.'

Kane sighed. 'That makes sense. And then he walked out on you, I suppose?'

She nodded. 'He didn't come home from the University one night. He left a letter for me in his office. He told me not to worry. Something very important had come up and he had to go away for a few weeks.'

'It still doesn't explain why you're looking for him here in Bahrein.'

'I'm coming to that,' she said. 'I received a package four days ago from the British Consul in Aden. It contained some doc.u.ments and a letter from John. In it he said that he was leaving on the coastal steamer for Bahrein. From here he intended to go up-country to Shabwa. He'd left the package with the Consul with strict instructions to forward it to me if he hadn't claimed it himself within two months.'

Kane stared at her in complete surprise. 'But Shabwa's a bad-security area,' he said. 'Right on the edge of the Empty Quarter - one of the greatest deserts on the face of the earth. What on earth was he doing up there?'

For a moment she hesitated, and then said slowly, 'Have you ever heard of Asthar, Captain Kane?'

He frowned slightly. 'An ancient Arabian G.o.ddess - the equivalent of Venus. She was worshipped in the time of the Queen of Sheba.'

She nodded. 'That's right. The Queen of Sheba was also high priestess of the cult.' There was a moment of stillness between them before she continued in a calm voice, 'My husband had reason to believe that out there in the Empty Quarter are the ruins of the great temple Sheba built in honour of the G.o.ddess Asthar.'

For a little while there was silence as Kane looked at her in astonishment and then he shook his head. 'Oh, no, Mrs Cunningham. If that's what your husband was looking for, it's no wonder you haven't heard from him.

There isn't a d.a.m.ned thing out there except sand, heat and thirst.'

'My husband knew differently. You see, he made an amazing discovery some months ago. Part of his research work entailed the translation of ancient Arabic ma.n.u.scripts and parchments, many of which had come from St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai. While working on one of these, he noticed it had been used before and the older script partially erased. By using specialized equipment available at the University, he managed to make a copy of the original writing.'

Kane was beginning to get interested. 'Was that also in Arabic?'

She shook her head. 'No, it was in Greek. An account of a special mission performed by a Greek adventurer called Alexias. He was serving as a centurion in the Tenth Legion of the Roman Army.' She leaned back in the chair. 'Have you ever heard of a Roman general called Aelius Gallus?'

He nodded quickly. 'He tried to conquer Southern Arabia in 24 BC. Got as far south as Sheba and sacked the city of Marib. On the way back he had a rough time. Lost most of his army in the desert.'

She nodded. 'According to Alexias they moved much farther south to Timna and then marched on Shabwa. It was there that Aelius Gallus heard of Sheba's Temple. It was supposed to lie close to the ancient spice route between Shabwa and Marib, which cuts across a corner of the desert. There were fantastic tales told of the wealth of the place. Alexias was commissioned to lead a small body of cavalry into the desert on a lightning raid. They were to rejoin the main army at Marib.'

She paused and Kane said, 'Well, go on. Did he find it or didn't he?'

She smiled. 'Oh, he found it all right. The route across the desert was marked by seven stone pillars and the temple was about eighty or ninety miles from Shabwa. It lay in a gorge in a great outcrop of rock which, according to Alexias, reared unexpectedly out of the sand dunes. When they arrived, the temple was deserted except for one old priestess who tended the flame on the high altar. The scouting party who were first into the place were so disappointed at not finding the treasure, they tortured the old woman to make her talk. Alexias arrived too late to prevent it. She died cursing them."

In the silence which followed, Kane was conscious of a sudden irrational shiver. He said, 'Did they manage to find the temple treasury?'

She shook her head. 'It was too well hidden. They spent two days searching for it without success and then started back to Shabwa. The first night out they were caught in the open by a terrible sandstorm. It raged for more than a day. They lost some of the horses and had to double up. When they reached the first well, they found it had been poisoned.' She raised her shoulders slightly and shrugged. 'Cutting out the messy details, only Alexias came out of the desert alive and walking on his own two feet.'

'He must have been quite a man,' Kane said.

She nodded. 'I'll let you have the translation of his ma.n.u.script to read. You can judge for yourself. He doesn't explain how he rejoined the army, but he obviously managed it successfully. He ended up as commander of the fort at Beer-sheba in Palestine, writing an account of his adventures.'

Kane got to his feet and walked across to the edge of the parapet. He looked out across the harbour to the Gulf of Aden beyond, shrouded in its perpetual heat haze.

The Catalina swung in across the town and splashed into the waters of the harbour. Beyond it a freighter moved slowly across the horizon towards the Indian Ocean, and three dhows, in formation, swooped in towards the harbour like great birds.

He saw none of these things. Before him stretched the Empty Quarter - and somewhere in its fastness was Sheba's Temple.

When he lit a cigarette, his hands were trembling and his body was seized by a strange excitement. It was a feeling he had experienced only twice before in his life.

In both instances he had been a member of an expedition on the brink of an important discovery.

But this - this was different. It was something momentous - the find of a lifetime. Something to rival Knossos or the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of Kings.

When he turned to face her he was surprised at the steadiness of his voice. 'Have you any idea of the importance of all this if what you tell me is true?'