He turned from the sudden shock on the Englishman’s face, gave the lamp to Jamal and they waded towards the door. Cunningham stayed there in the middle of the chamber and they were already moving back along the passage before he started to follow.
As they ducked through the low entrance and climbed the steep incline to the wall that dammed in the pool, Cunningham caught up with Kane and grabbed him by the shoulder.
His face was white and strained, taut with anxiety. ‘We’ve got to get out of here now, Kane. We must find a way.’
‘Finding a way is simple enough,’ Kane said. ‘I realize that now. The problem for you will be whether you’re willing to take it.’
Jamal quickly climbed the wall and then reached down and pulled them up in turn. Kane took the lamp and played the beam down into the pool and Cunningham said, ‘You mean the underwater tunnel? But you said it was impossible.’
‘It wouldn’t be if there was no water in it,’ Kane said.
Cunningham frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s really quite simple. We go back up-river for the tools we left in the cave. The wall’s already in a pretty shaky state. It wouldn’t take us long to demolish enough of it to drain the pool and send the river back on its old course.’
Cunningham still had that slight frown on his face. ‘But you must be joking. It would flood the passage and the main chamber, probably even seep into the tomb. Those wall paintings wouldn’t last a day under water. They’d be destroyed for ever.’
‘I know,’ Kane said patiently. ‘On the other hand, I can’t see that we have a great deal of choice. I’m assuming, of course, that you still have an interest in your wife’s welfare.’
Cunningham flinched as if he had received a physical blow. He turned away as Kane continued, ‘There’s no need for you to come. Jamal and I can manage, but I’m afraid we’ll have to take the lamp. I’ll try to be as quick as possible.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Cunningham said, without turning round. ‘I’ll be fine.’
For a moment Kane hesitated, wondering whether the Englishman intended to do something silly, and then he shrugged and turned and explained the situation quickly in Arabic to Jamal.
The Somali took the lamp and led the way back up the rock slide and into the dark mouth of the tunnel through which the river emptied into the pool. The journey was not as bad as Kane had thought it would be, except for one or two deeper places where the gap narrowed and the current seemed to be trying to press him back with an implacable hand.
When they reached the steep bank of shale and scrambled up to the mouth of the tunnel which had granted them their freedom from the cave, it had a strangely unfamiliar look like some place visited once and briefly years before and never again.
Kane carried the three picks, and Jamal the hammers and crowbars and they went down the bank and entered the water again.
The return journey seemed only to take minutes and, as Jamal carefully negotiated the slide down into the pool, the beam of the lamp splashed out across the wall. There was no sign of the Englishman.
They dropped the tools quickly, and Kane took the lamp and called, ‘Cunningham!’
The sound of his voice rebounded from the narrow walls of the cave but there was no reply. He was about to call out again when there was the sound of a boot on stone in the darkness below. He shone the beam down into the slot and picked out Cunningham coming up the steep incline.
The Englishman looked up at him calmly, shading his eyes against the light. ‘You were quicker than I thought.’
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Kane demanded.
Cunningham turned and looked back down the incline to the entrance to the tunnel. ‘I went for another look.’
‘Without a light?’ Kane said incredulously.
Cunningham smiled and, all at once, the strain seemed to have left his face. ‘I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was there.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Down here at the base looks a good place to start. Some of these stones are half-rotten.’