'No conclusions, only some disturbing thoughts. Suppose somebody at
Pegasus who can understand them is now in possession of our rubbings and
Polaroids. What will their reaction be if they know how much progress we
have made in the search?'
'Not -very happy thoughts,' he agreed. 'But on the other hand there is
not much we can do about any of that until we get back to civilization,
except keep our eyes wide.
open and our wits about us. Hell, I haven't even got the little Rigby
rifle. We are a flock of sitting ducks.'
Aly, the muleteers and the monks seemed to be of the same opinion, for
they never slackened the pace. It was midday before they called the
first brief halt to brew coffee and to water the mules. While the men
lit fires, Nicholas took his binoculars from the mule pack and began to
climb the rock slope. He had not covered much ground before he glanced
back and saw Royan climbing after him. He waited for her to catch up.
'You should have taken the chance to rest,' he told her severely. 'Heat
exhaustion is a real danger.'
I don't trust you going off on your own. I want to know what you are up
to.'
'Just a little recce. We should have scouts out ahead, not just go
charging blindly along the trail like this. If I remember correctly from
the inward march, some of the ound lies just ahead of us. Lord knows
what we worst gr may run into.'
They went on upwards, but it was not possible to reach the crest for a
sheet of unscalable vertical cliff barred their way. Nicholas chose the
best vantage point below this barrier, and glassed both slopes of the
valley ahead of them.
The terrain was as he had remembered it. They were approaching the foot
of the escarpment wall and the ground was becoming more rugged and
severe, like the swell of the open ocean sensing the land and rising up
in alarm before breaking in confusion upon the shore. The trail followed
the river closely. The cliffs hung over the narrow aisle of ound that
made up the bank, sculpted by wind and gr weather into strange, menacing
shapes, like the battlements of a wicked witch's castle in an old Disney
cartoon.
At one point a buttress of red sandstone overhung the trail, forcing the
river to detour around it, and the trail was reduced so much that it
would be difficult for a laden mule to negotiate without being pushed
off the bank into the river.
Nicholas studied the bottom of the valley carefully through the lens. He
could pick out nothing that seemed suspicious or untoward, so he raised
his head and swept the Cliffs and their tops.
At that moment Aly's voice came up from the valley below, echoing along
the slope as he shouted, 'Hurry, effendi! The mules are ready to go on!'
Nicholas waved down to him, but then lifted the binoculars for one more
sweep of the ground ahead. A wink of bright light caught his eye - a
brief ephemeral stab of brilliance like the signal of a heliograph. He
switched his whole attention to the spot on the cliff from which it had
emanated.
