‘Can you see it?’ Sally was trembling. ‘Tell me you can see it too, Ben. Tell me I’m not imagining it.’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled, still not certain, ‘yes, I think—’
‘It’s the City of the Moon, Ben. The ghost city of the bush-men - it’s our lost city, Ben. It is. It is - it must be!’
It was vague, hazy. I shut my eyes tightly and opened them again. It was still there.
The double enclosure around the silent grove, vast symmetrical tracings on the silver plain, dark shadowy lines. There were the dark circles that marked the spots on which the phallic towers had stood, some of them obscured by the trees of the grove. Beyond the walls were the honeycomb cells of the lower city, crescent-shaped and spread around the shores of the ancient, vanished lake.
‘The moon,’ I whispered. ‘Low angle. Picking up the outline of the foundations. They must be so flattened that we have walked over them, lived on top of them for a month! The light of the full moon is just the right strength to cast shadows where the remains stand slightly proud.’
‘The photograph!’
‘Yes. From 36,000 feet, the light low enough and soft enough to give the same effect,’ I agreed.
‘We probably wouldn’t have seen it from such a low altitude, the helicopter didn’t go high enough,’ Sally suggested.
‘And it was noon,’ I agreed. ‘High-angle sun, no shadows. That is why Louren didn’t see it from the helicopter.’ It was so simple, and I had missed it. Some bloody genius - they must have botched the tests.
‘But there are no walls, Ben, no towers, nothing. Only the foundations. What happened to it? What happened to our city?’
‘We will find out, Sal,’ I promised. ‘But now let’s mark it, before it disappears again.’
I handed her the one torch from the knapsack, ‘One flash means “come towards me”; two flashes, “move away from me”; three, “move left”; four, “move right”; and a windmill means “you’re on it”.’ Quickly we agreed a simple code. ‘I’ll go down onto the plain and you signal me. Put me on top of the large tower first, then guide me around the perimeter of the outer walls. We had better work fast, we don’t know how long the effect will last. Give me a flat cut-out sign when it goes.’
It lasted a little over an hour with me scampering about on the plain in obedience to Sally’s signals, and then the city faded, and slowly vanished as the moon rose towards its zenith. I went up to fetch Sally down from the cliff. I was bare to the waist, having ripped my shirt to shreds and tied strips of it onto clumps of grass and shrubs as markers.
Back in camp we built a huge fire and I got out the Glen Grant to celebrate. We were so elated, and there was so much to discuss and marvel over, that sleep was long delayed.
We went over the lighting phenomenon again in greater detail, agreeing how it worked and ruefully remembering how close we had come to the truth when we discussed the low sun effect on our very first day, the day we discovered the fresh-water mussel shells. We discussed the shells and their new significance.
‘I swear here and now, with all the gods as my witness, that I will never again toss a piece of vital scientific evidence over my shoulder.’ I made oath and testament.
‘Let’s drink to that,’ suggested Sal.
‘What a wonderful idea,’ I agreed, and refilled the glasses. Then we went on to the old bushman’s story.
‘It just goes to show you that every piece of legend, every piece of folklore is based on some fact, however garbled.’ Sally becomes all philosophical after one shot of Glen Grant.
‘And let’s face facts, my blood brother Xhai is a champion garbler of facts from way back - the City of the Moon, forsooth.’
‘It’s a lovely name. Let’s keep it,’ Sally suggested. ‘And what do you think about Xhai’s grandfather actually meeting one of the white ghosts?’
‘He probably saw one of the old hunters or prospectors, remember, we nearly had ghost status awarded us.’
‘Literally and figuratively,’ Sally reminded me.
The talk went on and on while the moon made its splendid transit of the sky above us. Every now and then serious discussion degenerated into effusive outbursts of, ‘Oh, Ben. Isn’t it wonderful. We’ve got a whole Phoenician city to excavate. All to ourselves.’ Or, ‘My God, Sal. All my life I’ve dreamed of something like this happening to me.’
It was long past midnight before we got our feet back on the earth, and Sally brought up the subject of practical procedure.
‘What do we do, Ben? Do we tell Louren Sturvesant now?’
I poured another drink slowly, while I considered this.
‘Don’t you think, Sal, we should sink a pothole, a small one, of course, on the foundations. Just to be certain we’re not making fools of ourselves?’
‘Ben, you know that’s the first rule. Don’t go scratching around haphazardly. You might destroy something valuable. We should wait until we can go in on an orderly, organized basis.’
‘I know, Sal. But I just can’t help myself. Just one tiny little hole?’
‘Okay,’ she grinned. ‘Just one tiny little hole.’
‘I suppose we’d better try and get some sleep now, it’s past two o’clock.’
Just before we finally drifted off, Sally murmured against my chest, ‘I still wonder what happened to our city. If the bushman picture was correct then huge walls and towers of masonry have vanished into thin air.’
