of more interest. 'Yes, St. Frumentius.
But they will not let you visit the tomb. They will not let you into the
inner part of the monastery. Only the priests are allowed in there.'
He removed his cap and scratched the short, stiff bristles that covered
his scalp. They rasped like wire under his fingernails. 'This week is
the ceremony of Timkat, the Blessing of the Tabot. There will be a great
deal of excitement down there. You will find it very interesting, but
you will not be able to enter the Holy of Holies, nor will you be able
to see the actual tomb. I have never met any white man who has seen it.'
He squinted up at the sun. 'We must get on. It looks close, but it will
take us two more days to reach the Abbay.
It is bad ground down there. A long march, even for a famous dik-dik
hunter.' He laughed delightedly at his own joke, and turned away down
the path.
As they approached the bottom of the cliff, the gradient of the trail
smoothed out and the steps became shallower and further apart. The going
became easier and their progress swifter, but the air had changed in
quality and taste. It was no longer cool, bracing mountain air but the
languid, enervating air of the equator, with the smell and taste of the
encroaching jungle.
'Hod' said Royan, shrugging out of the woollen shawl.
'Ten degrees hotter, at least,' Nicholas agreed. He pulled his old army
jersey over his head, leaving.his hair in curly disarray. 'And we can
expect it to get hotter before we reach the Abbay. We still have to
descend another three thousand feet.'
Now the path followed the Dandera river for a while.
Sometimes they were several hundred feet above it, and shortly
afterwards they splashed waist-deep through a ford, hanging on to the
panniers of the mules to keep themselves from being swept away on the
flood.
Then the gorge of the Dandera river was too deep and steep to follow any
longer, as sheer cliffs dropped into dark pools. So they left the river
and followed the track that squirmed like a dying snake amongst eroded
hills and tall red stone bluffs.
A mile or two further downstream they rejoined the river in a different
mood as it rippled through dense forest.
The dangling lianas swept the surface and tree moss brushed their heads
as they passed, straggling and unkempt as the beard of the old priest at
Debra Maryam. Vervet monkeys chattered at them from the treetops and
ducked their heads in wide-eyed outrage at the human intrusion into
these secret places. Once a large animal crashed away through the
undergrowth, and Nicholas glanced across at Boris.
The Russian shook his head, laughing. 'No, English, not dik-dik. Only
kudu.'
On the hillside above them the kudu paused to look back. He was a large
bull with full twists to his wide corkscrew horns, a magnificent beast
with a maned dewlap and pricked ears shaped like trumpets. He stared at
them with huge, startled eyes. Boris whistled softly and his attitude
changed abruptly.
'Those horns are over fifty inches. They would get a place right at the
