Sheba. Part 20

The truck raced across the flat plain in a cloud of dust, and soon the three of them were coated with sand from head to foot. Kane helped himself to water and his eyes ceaselessly searched the plain ahead, looking for the black dots in the distance which would indicate their quarry.

There were two rifles bracketed to the roof of the truck and he took them down and handed one to Jamal. The great Somali's hands checked the weapon expertly and then he cradled it in his arms, one finger inside the trigger guard.

Kane gripped his tightly and stared through the windscreen out of dust-rimmed eyes. His mind became a blank as he waited so that he was taken completely by surprise when Marie screamed in his ear, and the black dots in the distance seemed to rush towards them.

He raised his rifle slightly and waited. As they came up fast behind the three camels, the man at the rear turned and looked towards them and his mouth opened in a cry of dismay. He urged his camel forward.

Marie spun the wheel and the truck moved abreast of the Arabs. Kane raised his rifle and fired a warning shot over them, and then the truck had drawn ahead.

As Marie swerved to a halt, the man with the diseased face, who was carrying Ruth Cunningham in front of him, released her so that she tumbled to the ground. He raised his rifle in one hand, and Jamal fired a quick shot, which lifted him from the saddle.

Marie drove the truck forward and halted beside Ruth Cunningham. She was weeping, her head buried in her hands, and Marie spoke gently to her. 'Did they harm you in any way?'

Ruth Cunningham shook her head several times and spoke with difficulty. 'The man with the awful face kept pawing me, but the one who seemed to be the leader made him leave me alone.' She collapsed in a flood of tears and Marie led her gently to the truck and eased her into one of the seats.

Kane walked across to the two men, who sat their camels quietly under the threat of Jamal's carbine. The man with the cropped ears grinned down at him. 'The ways of Allah are strange.'

'You're d.a.m.ned right, they are,' Kane told him. 'It's lucky for you, you didn't harm her. Now get to h.e.l.l out of here.'

He stood for a little while, watching them ride away, and then he went to help Jamal who was digging a shallow grave for the dead man.

When they returned to the truck, Ruth Cunningham was still sobbing quietly on Marie's shoulder. Kane raised his eyebrows enquiringly and Marie shook her head. He shrugged. 'There's no hurry. We'll rest up for an hour before starting back.'

He sat down in the sand, his back against the side of the truck and pulled the brim of his bush hat over his eyes, and gradually, his head nodded forward and he dozed.

In what seemed to be the same moment of time, he came awake to a gentle tug at his shoulder, Marie smiled down at him. 'We should be making a move, Gavin. It's after six.'

He got to his feet and looked into the interior of the truck. Ruth Cunningham was curled up in one of the pa.s.senger seats, sleeping. He smiled at Marie and climbed behind the wheel. She and Jamal went round to the other side and Kane gently eased in the clutch and drove away.

There was a car compa.s.s fitted to the dashboard and he decided to leave the camel tracks and pursue what seemed to be a much more direct route to Shabwa.

Gradually the sun dipped towards the horizon in a great orange ball and then the night fell with its usual rapidity. The sky was clear, with stars strung away to the horizon like diamond chips, and the moon bathed the desert in an unearthly white light.

Marie had dozed off, her head against Kane's shoulder, and he leaned back in his seat, hands steady on the wheel, and stared ahead into the night.

When he saw it, the shock was so great that he slammed his foot against the brake, bringing the truck to a halt with such force that everyone was thrown forward in their seats and brought violently awake.

'Gavin, what is it?' Marie cried in alarm.

He pointed over to the right-hand side of the vehicle without speaking. Standing poised on top of a small rise, throwing a long, dark, moon-shadow across the sand, was a delicate stone pillar.

Kane got out of the truck, followed by Marie, and walked slowly towards it. When he was a few feet away, his foot kicked against something with a metallic clang.

He picked up a couple of cans and weighed them in each hand. 'Corned beef and soup. Whoever it was, no Arab, that's for sure.'

He leaned down and picked up another object as Ruth Cunningham and Jamal moved forward to join him. For a moment they could not see what it was, and then he turned and held it out towards them. It was a large and very empty aluminium water-bottle.

TEN.

JAMAL GENTLY CLEARED loose sand away from the base of the pillar while Kane knelt beside him, directing the beam of a powerful electric torch on the work.

After a while, the Somali stopped digging and pointed. Kane leaned forward and saw that a long inscription in perfectly chiselled characters had emerged. He studied it carefully for several minutes and then got to his feet and walked back to the truck.

A spirit-stove flared in the slight breeze. Marie and Ruth Cunningham were heating cans of beans in a pan of boiling water. Kane flung himself down beside them, and Ruth poured hot coffee into a tin mug and handed it to him. 'Have you found anything more?'

Kane drank some of the coffee and nodded. 'A long Sabean inscription - that was the language of ancient Sheba, by the way. Unfortunately I haven't any books with me and I'm a little rusty.' He held out the mug for more coffee. 'I managed to decipher one or two words.

Asthar, for example, and a reference to distance which I'm not familiar with.'

Marie pushed back her hair with one hand and the light from the spirit-stove, flickering in the wind, danced across her face. 'You mean it's probably a sort of milestone?'

Kane nodded. 'It's obviously one of the seven pillars mentioned by Alexias.'

'But is that possible?' she said. 'If that pillar was erected during the time of the Queen of Sheba it would be almost three thousand years old.'

He shrugged. 'That's perfectly possible in the dry heat of the desert. I've seen inscriptions at Marib over two thousand five hundred years old and they look as fresh as if the mason had chiselled them yesterday - and another thing, you know how frequent sand storms are here. It's probably been buried, then uncovered again, scores of times over the ages.'

'What about that water-bottle and the empty food cans?' Ruth said, handing him a plate of beans.

'I think your husband must have left them there. We know for certain that he left Shabwa by camel. Whatever else may have happened to him, I think it's reasonable to a.s.sume he'd have got this far.'

'But those three outlaws?' she said. 'Perhaps there are others like them.'

He nodded. 'That's true. With every man's hand against them they go where no one else dares, but as a rule they don't come this far out. They usually hug the edge of the desert and keep within striking distance of water. In any case, only a European would use a water-bottle of that type. The Bedouins use goatskins.'

'So it was all true,' Marie said after a short silence. 'Sheba and her temple, Alexias and his Roman cavalrymen.'

'Yes, they must have pa.s.sed this way,' Kane said.

In the eerie silence that followed his words, no one seemed to breathe and for one timeless moment he almost expected to hear the c.h.i.n.k of harness in the distance and see the Roman cavalrymen appear over the dunes, Alexias in the lead, moonlight glinting on his breastplate as he reined in his horse and gazed out over the desert.

And then out of the silence there came a low, vibrant hum, which grew until it filled the ears, and Ruth Cunningham turned in alarm. Marie placed a hand on her arm and said quickly, 'It's nothing to be alarmed about. Something to do with the change in temperature. One layer of sand sliding over the other.'

'The singing sands,' Kane said softly. 'I wonder if Alexias heard them also.'

'One thing is certain,' Ruth Cunningham said. 'He wouldn't have had anyone who could have given him the scientific explanation.'

'All the same, I don't think he'd have been afraid,' Kane said gently. There was a short silence and he took out a crumpled packet of cigarettes. 'The thing we've got to decide now is, what do we do next.'

Marie took one of his cigarettes and leaned down to light it from the spirit-stove. When she sat up, her face was thoughtful. 'How far did Alexias say the temple was from Shabwa?'

'About ninety miles,' Kane said.

'And we're about forty miles from Shabwa?' He nodded and she leaned back, her face half in shadow. After a while she said slowly, 'I think we should turn round and chart a course for Marib. Even if we don't find other pillars still standing, we should find this outcrop of rock which Alexias described.'

Ruth Cunningham turned eagerly to Kane. 'Do you think we could?'