MAN truck roaring over the bridge above her, and, for a subliminal pulse
of time, the prancing red horse upon its side.
she almost shouted aloud, but controlled herself. The terror of the
moment returned to her with full force, and she found herself breathing
hard and her heart racing as though she had run a long way.
'It cannot be a coincidence,' she assured herself silently, 'and I am
not mistaken. It is the same company.
Pegasus Exploration.'
She was withdrawn and distracted for the last few miles of the journey,
until the track they were following ended abruptly on the brink of the
sheer cliffs of the escarpment, Here Boris pulled on to the grassy verge
and stopped the engine.
'This is as far as we ride. We camp here tonight. My big truck is not
far behind. They will make camp as so on as they arrive. Tomorrow we
will go down into the gorge on foot.'
As they dismounted, Royan tugged at Nicholas's arm, 'I must speak to
you,' she whispered urgently, and she followed him as he led her along
the bank of the river.
He found a place for them to sit side by side, with their legs dangling
over the drop. Beside them the swollen yellow river seemed to sense what
lay ahead of it. The cold mountain waters speeded up, swirled amongst
the rocks, and gathered themselves for that dizzying leap out into empty
space. The cliff below them was a sheer wall of rock almost a thousand
feet deep. It was so high that in the evening light the abyss far below
was a dark, mysterious place, its bottom hidden from them by shadow and
spray from the falls. As Royan looked down into it her sense of balance
swirled with vertigo. She cringed back from the edge and found herself
instinctively leaning against Nicholas's shoulder to steady herself.
Only when they touched did she realize what she was doing, and she
pulled away from him self-consciously.
The muddied waters of the Dandera. river leaped from the brink, and were
miraculously transformed into curtains of ethereal lacework as they
fell. Like the skirts of waltzing bride they shimmered and swirled, and
rainbows of light played through them as though from an embroidery of
seed pearls. Still falling, the columns of white spray twisted and
changed into lovely but ephemeral shapes, until they struck the lower
ledges of glistening black rock and exploded outwards into fresh clouds
of white that at last screened the dark depths of the abyss with ' an
opalescent veil.
It was with a conscious effort that Royan pulled her mind away from the
awe-inspiring scene and back to the troubled present.
'Nicky, do you remember I told you about the truck that forced my mother
and me over the bridge in the Land Rover?'
'Of course.' His expression was mystified as he studied her face. 'You
are upset. 'What is it, Royan?'
'The truck had signwriting down the sides of the trailers that it was
towing.'
'You told me, yes. Green and red. You told me that you didn't get a good
enough look to read the sign.'
