brilliant plan of action.'
They both stared out across the chasm in silence, until Royan whispered
softly, 'The covered stone. Taita's stone testament?'
'Don't say it aloud,' he pleaded, and made the sign against the evil
eye. 'Don't even think it aloud. The Devil is listening.'
They were silent again, both of them thinking furiously. Then Royan
started, 'Nicky, what if-' she broke off. 'No, that won't. work.' She
relapsed into frowning silence again.
Tamre broke the quiet with a sudden squeak of excitement, 'There it is.
Look!'
They were both startled by the interruption. 'What is it?' Royan turned
to him.
Tamre seized her arm and shook it. He was trembling with emotion. 'There
it is. I told you.' With his other hand he was pointing out across the
river, 'There at the edge of the thorn bushes. Can't you see it?'
'What is it? What can you see?'
'The animal of John the Baptist. The holy marked creature.'
Following the direction of his outflung arm, she picked out a soft,
brownish blur of movement at the edge of the thicket on the far bank. 'I
don't know. It is too far-'
Nicholas scrabbled in his pack and brought out his binoculars. He lifted
and focused them, and then he began to chuckle.
'Hallelujah! Great-grandpa's reputation is safe at last.' He passed the
binoculars to Royan. She focused them and found the little creature in
the field. It was three hundred yards away, but through the ten-power
lens she could make it out in detail.
It was almost half as large again as the common dikdik that they had
seen the previous day, and instead of drab grey its coat was a rich red
brown. Its most striking feature, however, was the distinct dark bars of
chocolate colour across its shoulders and back - five evenly spaced
markings that did indeed look like the imprint of fingers and thumb.
'Madoqua harperii, no less,' Nicholas whispered to her.
'Sorry, great-grandfather, for doubting you.'
The dik-dik stood half in shadow, wriggling its nose as it snuffled the
air. Its head was held high, suspicious and alert. The soft breeze was
quartering between them and the animal, but every so often a wayward
eddy gave it the faint whiff of humanity that had alarmed it.
Royan heard the snick of the rifle action as Nicholas worked the bolt
and chambered a round. Hurriedly she lowered the glasses, and glanced at
him. 'You aren't going to shoot it?' she demanded.
'No, not at that range. Over three hundred yards, and a small target.
I'll wait for it to get closer.'
'How can you bring yourself to do it?'
'How can I not? That's what I came here to do, amongst other things.'
'But it's so beautiful.'
'I take it, then, that it would be perfectly all right to whack it if it
were ugly?'
She said nothing, but raised the binoculars again. The eddy of the wind
must have changed, for the dik-dik lowered its head to nibble at a tuft
