and they saw the golden red beaches broken by headlands and points of
jagged rock, and beyond it the land rose gradually, barren and awful,
speckled only with the low scrubby spino Cristi and car riel grass.
For an hour they ran parallel with the shore, a thousand yards off, and
the group by the rail stood and stared at it with fascination.
Only Jake had left the group and was making the preparations to begin
unloading, but he also came back to the rail when abruptly a deep bay
opened ahead of them.
'The Bay of Chains,' said Gregorius, and it was clear how it had got
its name, for, huddled under the cliffs of one headland and protected
from the prevailing winds and the run of the surf by the horn of land,
were the ruins of the ancient slave city of Month.
Gregorius pointed it out to them, for it did not look like a city.
It was merely an area of broken rock and stone blocks running down to
the water's edge. They were close enough now to make out the roughly
geometrical layout of smothered streets and roofless buildings.
Hirondeue dropped anchor and snubbed up gently. Jake finished his
final preparations for unloading and crossed to where Gareth stood by
the rail.
'One of us will have to swim a line ashore.'
'Spin you for it,'
suggested Gareth, and before Jake could protest he had the coin in his
hand.
'Heads!' jake looked resigned.
'Bad luck, old son. Give the sharks my love.' Gareth smiled and
stroked his mustache.
Jake balanced on the clumsy pontoon raft as it was lifted by the donkey
engine and lowered over the side, dangling on the heavy lines. and
floated alongside as It settled on to the surface un-gracefully as a
pregnant hippo.
Jake grinned up at Vicky who was leaning over the rail, watching with
interest.
'Unless you want to be blinded with splendour, you'd better close your
eyes.' For a moment she did not understand, but then as he started to
strip off his shirt and unbutton his pants, she turned modestly away.
With the end of a coil of light line tied about his waist Jake plunged
naked into the sea and struck out for the shore. Vicky's curiosity got
the better of her at this stage, and she glanced slyly overboard. There
was something so childlike and defenceless about a man with his
trousers off, she thought, as she considered Jake's bobbing white
buttocks. She might develop that as a theme in one of her columns, she
thought, and then realized that Gareth Swales was watching her with one
mockingly raised eyebrow, as he paid out the coil of line that snaked
after Jake. She blushed pinkly under her tan and hurried away to make
sure her typewriter and personal duffel bag were packed away into Miss
Wobbly.
Jake touched bottom and waded ashore to secure the line to one of the
stone blocks, and already the first car was on on its wooden blocks,
and, with the winch clattering, was being lifted over the side.
