‘I’m sure it can be most unhealthy, especially after any length of time, Dr Benator. The sun can play havoc with one’s skin, can it not? And you are still looking peaky from your headache. We were very worried about you. I do hope you are feeling better now.’
Sally found that despite her gentle nunlike air, Hilary was an opponent worthy of her steel. She changed her attack. She turned all her attention onto Louren, laughing gaily at his every word and not taking her eyes from his face. Hilary was helpless in the face of these tactics. I seemed to be the only one in the party aware of this duel in progress, and I sat silently trying to puzzle out the meaning of it all - until Hilary played her trump.
‘Louren, darling, it has been such a busy, exciting day. Won’t you take me to bed now, please.’
She swept off the field on Louren’s arm, and reluctantly I had to admit that my Sally had received the treatment she deserved.
I woke to the awareness of somebody else in my bedroom with me, and I tensed myself for sudden violent action as I rolled my head stealthily and looked towards the door. It was open. The moonlight outside was bright and dear. Sally stood in the opening.
She wore a flimsy nightdress, which did not conceal the lovely outline of her nude body against the silver moonlight. The long legs, the swelling womanly hips, the nip-in of waist and flare of breast, the long gazelle neck with tilt of dainty head.
‘Ben?’ she asked softly.
‘Yes.’ I sat up, and she came quickly to me. ‘What it is, Sal?’
In reply she kissed me with open mouth and probing tongue. I was taken completely by surprise, frozen in her arms and she laid her cheek against mine. In a small gusty voice she whispered, ‘Make love to me, Ben.’
There was something wrong here, desperately wrong. I felt no awakening of desire, only a warm rise of compassion for her.
‘Why, Sal?’ I asked. ‘Why now?’
‘Because I need it, Ben.’
‘No, Sally. I don’t think you do. I think that is the very last thing in the world you need now.’
And suddenly she was crying, big broken silent sobs. She cried for a long time, and I held her. When she was quiet I laid her on the pillow and covered her with the blankets.
‘I am a bitch, aren’t I, Ben?’ she whispered, and went to sleep. I stayed awake all that night, watching over her. I think I knew then what was happening, but I did not want to admit it to myself.
At breakfast Louren abruptly announced that the family would return immediately to Johannesburg, rather than stay the extra day as had been originally planned. I found it hard to hide my disappointment, and when I asked Louren for a reason as soon as we were alone, he merely looked towards the heavens and shrugged with exasperation.
‘You are plain lucky you never married, Ben. My God -women!’
Life at the City of the Moon returned to its normal satisfying routine for a week, during which Ral and I pursued our search for the tombs and the others worked steadily at the scrolls. Then while Ral and I sat in a sizzling midday sun under the meagre shade of a camel thorn, a little puckish figure rose from the grass seemingly at my feet.
‘Sunbird,’ said Xhai softly, 1 have travelled many days to seek the sunshine of your presence.‘ He turns the prettiest compliment, and my heart went out to him.
‘Ral,’ I said, ‘let me have your tobacco pouch, please.’
We sat together all that afternoon under the camel thorn, and we talked. The conversations of primitive Africa are an art form, with elaborate rituals of question and answer, and it was late before Xhai reached the subject which he had come to discuss,
‘Does Sunbird remember the water-in-the-rock at the place where we slew the elephant?’
Sunbird remembered it well.
‘Does Sunbird remember the little holes that the white ghosts made in the rock?’
Sunbird would never forget them.
‘These holes gave Sunbird and the big golden one much pleasure, did they not?’
They did indeed.
‘Since that day I have looked with fresh eyes upon the rocks as I hunted. Would Sunbird wish to visit another place where there are many such holes?’
Would I!
‘I will lead you there,’ Xhai promised.
‘And I will give you as much tobacco as you can carry away,’ I promised him in return, and we beamed at each other.
‘How far is this place?’ I asked, and he began to explain. It was beyond the ‘big wire’ he told me. This was the 300-mile-long game fence along the Rhodesian border which was erected to control movements of the wild animals as a precaution against foot and mouth disease. We would need clearance from the Rhodesians, and when Xhai went on to describe an area which seemed fairly close to the Zambezi river border with Zambia, I knew I would have to ask Louren to arrange an expedition. It was obviously squarely within the zone of terrorist activity.
Xhai refused to accompany me back to a camp which was filled with his traditional enemies, the Bantu. Instead we arranged to meet under the camel thorn three days later, once Xhai had completed the rounds of his trap line.
I was fortunate enough that evening to find Louren had returned an hour before from Madagascar.
‘What’s the trouble, Ben?’ His voice boomed above the radio static.
