Jack Higgins – Sheba

Kane nodded. ‘I know and that’s why I’m here. There’s a woman in town – a Mrs Cunningham.’

Gonzalez nodded. ‘This is so. She got off the mail boat from Aden today.’

‘She’s looking for her husband. He wrote to her two months ago telling her he was coming to Dahrein. He intended to go up-country to Shabwa. She hasn’t heard from him since.’

The Spaniard frowned. ‘What was this man’s name – Cunningham, you say?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m afraid she must have made a mistake. No one by that name has landed in Dahrein.’

‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’ Kane demanded.

Gonzalez shrugged. ‘How could I be mistaken? Do I not meet every boat?’

For a moment Kane was going to argue, but he decided it wasn’t worth it. That the Spaniard didn’t check half the boats he should was common knowledge in Dahrein. Getting him to admit that fact was something else entirely. He pulled his cap down over his eyes and sighed. ‘Thanks anyway. It looks as if Mrs Cunningham made a mistake.’

Gonzalez nodded wisely. ‘It is a thing women commonly do.’

Kane stood outside the house, as the door closed behind him, and looked out across the harbour to the launch. He could see Piroo squatting against the stern rail and knew that the Hindu would be watching him.

He felt tired – really tired. He slipped a hand into his hip pocket and pulled out the envelope Ruth Cunningham had given to him. He looked at it thoughtfully and came to a sudden decision. There was only one other person in Dahrein who might have some information about the elusive John Cunningham. That was Marie Ferret. He had to see her anyway, but his visit could wait until the evening when it was cooler.

He walked along to the end of the jetty and Piroo tumbled over the stern into the dinghy and sculled it towards him. Kane dropped down into the little boat and the Hindu started to pull back towards the launch. ‘Any visitors while I’ve been away?’

Piroo shook his head. ‘All is quiet, Sahib. It is too hot for any but a fool to be abroad.’

Kane grinned and the little Hindu’s face clouded with dismay. ‘I am sorry, Sahib,’ he said. ‘I have a foolish tongue.’

Kane shook his head and pulled himself up over the rail of the launch. ‘No, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head this time, Piroo. I’m dead tired. I’m going below for a sleep. Wake me around eight, will you?’

Piroo nodded and Kane went below into the coolness of his cabin. He mixed a drink, stripped the clothes from his body and went and lay on the bunk, the envelope Ruth Cunningham had given him in his hand.

He took out the typed translation of the manuscript and started to read. It was an absorbing story, and he read steadily for an hour until he had finished it. For a little while he lay staring at the roof of the cabin and thinking about Alexias. A well-defined personality had emerged from the pages to stand before him. It was that of a brave and aggressive, physically tough man, highly intelligent and a natural leader.

There had been a touch of the dreamer in him also. Kane reread the portion of the manuscript in which Alexias described his feelings on first setting out into the desert in search of the temple. The man’s character emerged strongly in the light of his own words. A born adventurer, always restless, always gazing beyond the next hill, always searching for something and never finding it.

Had he been looking for Sheba’s Temple or had he really been searching for something else. His own true self, perhaps? The self that most men went through life without ever meeting. He turned to the last page of the manuscript and read again the final sentence.

‘… So, /, Alexias, Senior Centurion of the Tenth Legion, Commander at Beer-Sheba, end this account. Lest other men should be tempted to follow the seven pillars to Sheba’s Temple, a word of warning. For my poor comrades those seven pillars led only to death.’

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