‘Come, Professor,’ he had said. ‘Andros will accompany us. He can move as fast on foot as a trotting horse.’
Fields had been staring unblinkingly into the middle distance during the debate between Adam and Rallis. Like a man emerging from a trance at the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers, he had jolted into life.
‘It is confoundedly inconvenient,’ he had snapped, ‘but I can see no viable course of action save to do what this wretched head man demands.’
He had begun to follow Andros. After he had gone a dozen yards, he had turned and called back to the others.
‘I will speak to this man Garland. I will persuade him to leave us in peace. We cannot be disturbed by anyone at so crucial a moment in our digging.’
Adam had watched as the professor had made his way to join the Greek villagers. There had been a good deal of shouting and gesticulating as he did so. The young man had looked at Rallis.
‘Well,’ he had said, ‘this is an unexpected turn of events. I do not think anyone, least of all the professor, will prevent Mr Garland joining us here if he decides to do so. He is a determined man.’
‘Perhaps his arrival will benefit us, Adam.’
‘You mean that Garland’s presence will stand in the way of the professor’s plans for any gold we might find?’
The Greek had nodded.
‘Perhaps Garland is after the gold himself,’ Adam had suggested. ‘I cannot see how he could know about Euphorion and the lost manuscript, but it is possible.’
‘These are all imponderables, my friend.’ Rallis had taken off his hat and run his fingers through his thinning hair. ‘But I must go and join the others.’
‘Be on your guard, Rallis.’
‘I will, Adam.’
The lawyer had shaken Adam’s hand. He had turned and made his way towards the camp where Fields, his hand shading his eyes, had been gazing back at them.
Adam and Quint had then climbed down into the trench once more and continued to dig. Adam, perplexed by the turn events had taken, had been able to think of nothing but the riders from the north and the idea that Emily Maitland might soon arrive at the excavation.
A few minutes after examining the coin showing Heracles and the Nemean lion which Quint had unearthed, he nonetheless threw down his spade.
‘You are right, Quint,’ he said. ‘We shall dig nothing here but our own graves. Into which, felled by heat and exhaustion, we shall soon tumble.’
Adam sat down on the floor of the trench, his back to his servant. There was silence apart from the sounds of the birds flying above them.
‘Did you not hear what I said, Quint?’ Adam took his hat from his head and wiped away the sweat that was trickling down his brow. ‘It is rare enough that I agree with you. I would have thought you would seize upon such a moment of accord. Cast aside the spade and we shall rest a while.’
There was still no word from his servant. Adam turned to see what was keeping him silent. Quint was holding up an object he had found between his thumb and forefinger.
‘I reckon this is gold,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
Adam took it from him and let it rest on the outstretched palm of his right hand. It was tiny, less than half an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide, but it was quite clearly in the form of a sculptured head. Beneath the soil with which it was coated, he could make out the eyes, the nose and the beard. And Quint was right. Also beneath its covering of dirt, the little head glinted with the unmistakeable shimmer of gold.
‘What is it?’ Quint asked, still speaking as quietly as a man in church might.
Adam tilted his hand slightly and admired the way the object glittered in the sunlight. He brushed some of the dirt from it.
‘I’m not sure. It was probably part of some ornament. Is it the head of a god perhaps? Neptune?’
‘We planning on telling the others we found it?’
Adam ignored Quint’s remark and, crouching down close to the upturned soil, reached down to pick up another glinting object from the earth. He held it up for Quint to see.
‘A ring,’ he said. ‘A gold ring that once circled the finger of some blueblood Macedonian lady long dead. Who knows what beauty used to own it? It must have fallen from her hand more than twenty-one hundred years ago.’
The young man stared at the two golden pieces in his hand. His mind drifted back into the Greek history his education had constructed for him. He lost his sense of the present, and the imagined past was briefly more vivid than anything around him. It was only for a moment and then he returned to reality.
‘I think Fields and Rallis should be told of what we have found. As soon as possible. They should know before they get back here with Garland. Go after them, Quint. Take one of the mules. See if our friends have met these new visitors. Let them know of our discovery.’
His servant stared at him in disgust, as if he could scarcely believe what was being demanded of him.
‘In this heat? You want me to go riding off into the hills on one of them bleeding mules? When it’s fit to fry eggs in the shade?’
‘Just go, Quint, will you?’
‘They’re on ’orses. ’Ow am I goin’ to catch them when they’re on ’orses?’
‘You will not catch them. I do not expect you to catch them. You will meet them as they return from their rendezvous. I would have thought that it would be a pleasure to be the bearer of glad tidings. For once in your life, why not do something without first listing all the reasons why you can’t?’
Quint continued to gaze at his master with an air of truculence, but, after a few seconds, he turned and began to climb the short ladder propped against the trench wall. Adam watched him go. For several minutes the sounds of mumbled grousing drifted down to where he was standing. A mule brayed and Quint cursed. Then there was silence. Adam picked up his spade and began once more to dig.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
An hour passed but there was no sign of Adam’s companions returning. He continued to work in the trench. He came upon no more golden objects. Once again he laid down his spade. Quint had left a jacket at the far end of the trench. Adam spread it out on the compacted mud floor and sat on it. He leaned against the side of the deep ditch that they had dug. His eyes closed and within a few minutes he had fallen asleep. The sun rose higher and higher in the sky but Adam, still in the shade the trench offered, continued to sleep. He dreamed of Heracles in the Cremorne Gardens, startling the visitors with his lion skin and his club.
He awoke with a start. He could see the dark outline of a man standing on the lip of the trench. The man was holding a revolver, aiming it at his heart. As Adam, still half asleep and rubbing his eyes, began to struggle to his feet, the man silhouetted against the sun swivelled the revolver abruptly. He shot into the side of the trench and then swung the gun back towards Adam’s body. The noise of the shot reverberated thunderously around the camp.
‘Stay where you are!’ the man shouted. Adam recognised the voice immediately. It was Fields.
‘Professor?’ Although the voice was so familiar, Adam could not yet quite believe that the person directing the gun at him was his old tutor and mentor. ‘What is this? What are you doing? Where are Rallis and Quint?’
Fields shook his head in irritation as if Adam’s questions were pointless distractions from the matter in hand.
‘It is all over, Adam. I have thought through the possibilities most carefully. I have no other choice.’ The professor sounded weary. He continued to point the gun at the young man. ‘I regret very much that it should come to this. Rallis forced my hand at first with all his stupid ideas about stealing the legacy of the ancient Greeks. As if the wretched Greeks of today were capable of appreciating their past. The more of their treasures that pass into the hands of Englishmen, the better. At least we are civilised enough to look after them. And now the arrival of this man Garland puts paid to my alternative plans.’