the lake bottom. She stood there quietly, with just the top of her head
above the surface and her face turned away from the bank. She knew her
dark hair would not reflect the light of a probing torch.
Though the water covered her ears, she could make out the excited voices
of the men on the road. They had turned their torches down towards the
water and were shining them into the reeds, searching for her. For a
moment one of the beams played full on her head, and she drew a deep
breath ready to submerge, but the beam moved on and she realized that
they had not picked her out.
The fact that she had not been seen even in the direct torchlight
emboldened her to raise her head slightly until one ear was clear and
she could make out their voices.
They were speaking Arabic, and she recognized the voice of the one named
Bacheet. He appeared to be the leader, for he was giving the orders.
'Go in there, Yusuf, and bring the whore out.'
She heard Yusuf slipping and sliding down the bank and the splash as he
hit the water.
'Further out,' Bacheet ordered him. 'In those reeds there, where I am
shining the torch.'
'It is too deep. You know well I cannot swim. It will be over my head.'
'There! Right in front of you. In those reeds. I can see her head.'
Bacheet encouraged him, and Royan dreaded that they had spotted her. She
sank down as far as she could below the surface.
Yusuf splashed around heavily, moving towards where she cowered in the
reeds, when suddenly there was a thunderous commotion that startled even
Yusuf, so that he shouted aloud, 'Djinns! God protect meV as the flock
of roosting duck exploded from the water and launched into the dark sky
on noisy wings.
Yusuf started back to the bank and not any of Bacheet's threats could
persuade him to continue the hunt.
'The woman is not as important as the scroll,' he protested, as he
climbed back on to the roadway. 'Without the scroll there will be no
money. We always know where to find her later.'
Turning her head slightly, Royan saw the torches move back down the road
towards the parked Fiat whose headlights still burned. She heard the
doors of the car slam, and then the engine revved and pulled away
towards the villa.
She was too shaken and terrified to make any attempt to leave her
hiding-place. She feared that they had left one of their number on the
road to wait for her to show herself.
She stood on tiptoe with the water lapping her lips, shivering more with
shock than with cold, determined to wait for the safety of the sunrise
before she moved.
It was only much later when she saw the glow of the fire lighting the
sky, and the flames flickering through the trunks of the palm trees,
that she forgot her own safety and dragged herself back to the bank.
She knelt in the mud at the water's edge, shuddering and shaking and
gasping, weak with loss of blood and shock and the reaction from fear,
and peered at the flames through the veil of her wet hair -and the lake
water that streamed into her eyes.
