He inhaled the fragrance of her and smiled. ‘Lucky me.’
She sighed contentedly. ‘This is nice.’
They were crossing an area of flat scrubland and he drove with one hand, sliding the other about her shoul- der, pulling her close. There were many things he could have said, but there was really no need to say anything.
After a while, she raised her face and kissed him gently on one cheek. ‘My poor Gavin,’ she said and there was a glint of amusement in her eyes.
‘Damn you!’ he said. ‘Damn all women!’
She laughed softly. ‘What are we going to do about it?’
He sighed. ‘The usual thing, I suppose. There’s Father O’Brien at Mukalla. Will he suit you?’
‘Admirably – I like Father O’Brien,’ she said. ‘And afterwards?’
He shrugged. ‘That can take care of itself.’
She seemed about to argue the point and then she shrugged as if content for the moment. ‘We’ll see.’
After a while, she slept and Kane held her close as he stared out through the windscreen, and told himself wryly that life was catching up on him again. It was rather pleasant to find that he didn’t really mind.
The scrubland came to an end and he eased Marie into the corner, changed to a lower gear, and took the truck up the steep side of a dune.
The moon grew paler, and in the east, tiny fingers of light appeared above the horizon as dawn touched the sky. His eyes were gritty and sore from lack of sleep and his arms ached with the driving of the past few hours.
He halted on top of a large dune for a moment or two and searched the desert with field glasses. As the sun lifted above the horizon, flooding the sky with light, it glinted on something in the distance. He focused the glasses. Rearing out of the desert five or six miles away, was a great outcrop of reddish stone.
He engaged a low gear and took the truck down the steep side of the sand dune. Once at the bottom, he drove through a gap which brought him to another flat plain of sand and scrub. He accelerated and drove towards the distant outcrop of rock at high speed.
As the truck lurched forward, the others came awake quickly. ‘What’s happening?’ Marie demanded anxiously.
He nodded into the distance. ‘We’re almost there.’
Ruth Cunningham leaned forward, her hands gripping the edge of the seat so strongly that her knuckles showed white.
The outcrop increased in size until it towered above them and then they entered the deep gorge which twisted into the heart of it. Kane braked to a halt and switched off the engine. It was completely quiet, and after a moment, he took down one of the rifles and stepped to the ground. ‘It might be an idea if we left the truck here. There’s no knowing what we might find up ahead.’
Jamal took the other rifle and they started to walk along the firm bed of the gorge. After a while, Ruth
Cunningham gave a startled exclamation and pointed upwards. ‘Isn’t that an inscription on the face of the rock?’
As the sun’s rays penetrated the gorge, they picked out the rock inscriptions with startling suddenness. Kane moved closer and gazed up. After a moment or two, he nodded. ‘They’re Sabean all right. We’ve certainly come to the right place.’
He moved on, the others at his shoulder. They passed several more inscriptions and then rounded a shoulder of rock and paused.
Before them stretched a broad avenue of pillars, some in varying stages of ruin, others still intact. At the end of the avenue there was the crumbling facade of a mighty temple built into the face of the gorge itself.
Kane’s mouth went dry. He could remember no other moment in his life quite like it. He started forward quickly and the others trailed after him.
At the end of the avenue of pillars, and directly in front of the temple itself, was a deep pool of water, crystal-clear and fed from some invisible spring. He flung himself down by its side and drank from his cupped hands.