'It's been there for almost four thousand years.' She was hopping from
one foot to the other with frustration.
'Dammit, Nicky, if there is a moving part, it will be stiff.
Harder! Push harder!'
He shifted his feet to get well under it and placed both hands under the
projection of the head. Slowly he brought all his strength to bear. The
cords in his neck stood out and blood flooded his face, turning it a
deep, angry red.
'Harder!' she implored him, but at last he dropped his arms to his sides
and stood back.
'No.' His voice was hoarse and strained with the effort.
'It's solid. Won't budge.'
'Lift me up. Let me look.'
'With the greatest of pleasure. Any excuse to lay hannds on you.' He
stepped behind her and placed lascivious han both arms around her waist,
then lifted her until she was able to touch the bird's head.
Quickly she explored it with her fingertips, and then she let out a
small cry of triumph.
'Nicky! You have started something. The paint is cracked all around the
outline of the head. I can feel it.
Lift me higher!
He grunted with the effort but raised her another foot off the floor.
'Yes, definitely!' she exclaimed. 'Something has a hairline crack in the
wall above the moved. There is head, as well. You have a look!
He fetched one of the empty ammunition crates from the landing outside
the entrance and placed it below the vulture image. When he stepped up
on to it he was on a level with the vulture's eye.
His expression changed. Quickly he groped in his pocket and brought out
his clasp knife, He opened the blade and probed carefully around the
outline of the head.
Tiny specks of dried paint and plaster filtered down as he worked.
It does look as though the head is a separate detached piece, 'he
admitted.
'Look on top of it, higher up the wall. There along the edge of the
sunbeam. Can't you see a vertical crack in the plaster?'
'You are right, you know,' he admitted. 'But if I try to open that crack
I am going to damage the mural. Do you want me to do that?'
She hesitated only a moment. 'This tomb is going to be reflooded when
the river rises, so we are going to lose it again anyway. It's worth the
risk. Do it, Nicky!'
life-blade into the fine He pressed the point of the kn crack and
twisted it gently. A slab of painted plaster the size of his s'read hand
fell out of the wall and splattered into the dust on the agate tiles of
the floor.
He peered into the cavity that it had left in the wall.
'It looks like some kind of slot or groove in the wall,' he said. 'I am
going to clear its full length.' Carefully he worked at the cavity he
had opened, and more loose plaster rained down.
Royan sneezed in the dust, but would not retreat, Particles of debris
