separated them now. No longer making any attempt at concealment,
Nicholas leaned back against the hole of the Thorn tree. He tipped his
Panama hat forward over one eye and gave Jake Helm a laconic wave.
The foreman made no response to the greeting. He regarded Nicholas with
a flat, baleful stare, then struck a match and held the flame to the tip
of the half-smoked cigar between his lips. He flipped the dead match
away and blew a feather of smoke in Nicholas's direction. Still without
change of expression, he said something to the pilot out of the corner
of his mouth.
Immediately the helicopter rose vertically and banked away to the north,
heading back directly towards the wall of the escarpment and the base
camp on its summit.
'Mission accomplished. He found what he was looking for.'Royan sat up.
'Us!'
'And he must have spotted the camp. He knows where to find us
again,'Nicholas agreed.
Royan shivered and hugged herself briefly. 'He gives me the creeps, that
one. He looks like a toad.'
'Oh, come on!' Nicholas chided her. 'What have you got against toads?'
He stood up. 'I don't think we are going to see great-grandfather's
dik-dik again today. He has been thoroughly shaken up by the chopper.
I'll come back for another try tomorrow.'
'We should go and look for Tamre. He has probably had another fit, the
poor little fellow.'
She was wrong. They found the boy beside the path.
He was still shivering and weeping, but had not suffered another
seizure. He calmed down quickly when Royan soothed him, and followed
them back towards the camp.
However, when they neared the grove he slipped away in the direction of
the monastery.
That evening, while it was still light, Nicholas took Royan back to the
monastery.
'I believe that the criminal fraternity refer to a reconnaissance of
this nature as 'casing the joint',' he remarked, as they stooped through
the entrance of the rock cathedral and joined the throng of worshippers
in the outer chamber.
'From what Tamre says, it sounds as though the novices wait until they
know that the priests on duty are ones that will nod off during their
watch,' Royan told him softly, as they paused to gaze through the doors
into the middle chamber.
'We don't have that sort of insider knowledge,' Nicholas pointed out.
There were priests passing backwards and forwards through the doors as
they watched.
'There doesn't seem to be any sort of procedure,' Nicholas noted. 'No
password or ritual to allow them through.'
'On the other hand, they greeted the guards at the door by name. It's a
small community. They must all know each other intimately.'
'There doesn't seem any chance at all that I could dress up like a monk
and brazen my way through,'Nicholas agreed-A wonder what they do to
intruders in the sacred areas?'
