She reached the road at last, and with a small whimper of relief climbed
out of the drainage ditch on to the pale gravel surface. Her legs were
shaking under her so that they could hardly carry her weight, but she
turned in the direction of the village.
She had not reached the first bend before she saw a set of headlights
coming slowly towards her, flickering through the palm trees. She broke
into a run down the centre of the road.
'Help me!' she screamed in Arabic. 'Please help me!'
The car came through the bend and before the headlights dazzled her she
saw that it was a small, darkcoloured Fiat. She stood in the centre of
the road waving her arms to halt the driver, lit by the headlights as
though she were on a theatre stage. The Fiat stopped in front of her,
and she ran round to the driver's door and tugged at the handle.
'Please, you must help me.'
The door was opened from within, and then was thrown back with such
force that she staggered off-balance.
The driver leapt out into the roadway and caught her by the wrist of the
injured arm. He dragged her to the Fiat and pulled open the back door.
'Yusuf! Bacheed' he shouted into the dark grove. 'I have her.' And she
heard the answering cries and saw the torches turn in their direction.
The driver was forcing her head down and trying to push her into the
back seat, but she realized then that she still had the stone in her
good hand. She turned slightly and braced herself, and then swung her
fist with the stone still clenched in it against the side of his head.
It caught him squarely on the temple.
Without another sound he dropped to the gravel surface and lay
motionless.
Royan dropped the stone and pelted away down the road, but she found
that she was running straight down the path of the headlights, and they
lit her every movement.
The two men in the grove shouted again and came up on to the gravel
roadway behind her, almost shoulder to shoulder.
Glancing back, she saw them gaining on her swiftly, and she realized
that her only chance was to get off the road and back into the darkness.
She turned and plunged down the bank. Immediately she found herself
waist-deep in the waters of the lake.
In the darkness and the confusion she had become disorientated. She had
not realized that she had reached the point where the road skirted the
embankment at the water's edge. She knew that she did not have time to
climb back on to the road, and she knew also that there were thick
clumps of papyrus and reeds ahead of her, that might give her shelter.
She waded out until the bottom sloped away steeply under her feet, and
she found herself forced to swim. She broke into an awkward
breast-stroke, hampered by her skirts and her injured arm. However, her
slow and stealthy movements created almost no disturbance on the
surface, and before the men on the road had reached the point where she
had descended the bank, she reached a dense stand of reeds.
. She eased her way into the thick of them and let herself sink. Before
the water covered her nostrils she felt her toes touch the soft ooze of
