before sailing away.
"He is using the thermals of heated air from the valley for lift,'
Nicholas explained to her. He pointed out along the cliff to an
overhanging buttress on the same level as themselves. "There is one of
their nests." It was a shaggy mound of sticks piled on an inaccessible
ledge. The excrement of the birds that had inhabited it over the ages
had painted the cliff face below with streaks of brilliant white, and
even at this distance they could catch whiffs of rotting offal and
decaying flesh.
All that day they clung to the precipitous track as they eased their way
down that terrible wall. It was late afternoon, and they were only
halfway down, when the trail turned back upon itself once more and they
heard the rumble of the falls ahead. The sound grew louder and became a
thunderous roar as they moved around the corner of another buttress and
came in full sight of the falls.
The wind created by the torrent tugged at them and forced them to clutch
for handholds. The spray blew around them and wetted their upturned
faces, but the i: Ethiopian guide led them straight on until it seemed
that they must be washed away into the valley still hundreds of feet
below.
Then, miraculously, the waters parted and they stepped behind the great
translucent curtain into a deep recess of moss-covered and gleaming wet
rock, carved from the cliff by the force of water over the aeons. The
only light in this gloomy place was filtered through the waterfall,
green and mysterious like some undersea cavern.
"This is where we sleep tonight," Boris announced, obviously enjoying
their astonishment. He pointed to bundles of firewood piled at the rear
of the cave, and the smoke-blackened wall above the stone hearth. The
muleteers carrying food and supplies down to the priests in the
monastery have used this place for centuries."
As they moved deeper into the cavern, the sound of falling water became
muted to a dull background rumble and the rock underfoot was dry. Once
the servants had lit the fire, it became -a warm and comfortable, not to
say romantic, lodging.
With an old soldier's eye for the most comfortable spot, Nicholas laid
out his sleeping bag in a corner at the back of the cave, and quite
naturally Royan unrolled hers beside his. They were both tired out by
the unusual exertion of climbing down the cliff wall, and after supper
they stretched out in their sleeping bags in companionable silence and
watched the firelight playing on the roof of the cave.
"Just think!" Royan whispered. "Tomorrow we will be retracing the
footsteps of old Taita himself."
"To say nothing of the Virgin Mary,'Nicholas smiled.
"You are a horrid old cynic," she sighed. "And what is more, you
probably snore."
"You are about to find out the hard way," he told her, but she was
asleep before him. Her breathing was gentle and even, and he could just
hear it above the sound of the water. It was a long time since he had
had a lovely woman lying at his side. When he was sure she was deeply
under, he reached across and touched her cheek gently.
"Pleasant dreams, little one," he whispered tenderly.
"You have had a busy day." That was the way he had often bid his younger
daughter sleep.
The muleteers were stirring long before the dawn, and the whole party
was on the path, way again as soon as the light was strong enough to
reveal their footing. When the early sun struck the upper walls of the
cliff face, they were still high enough above the valley floor to have
an aerial view of the terrain.
Nicholas drew Royan aside and they let the rest of the caravan go on
down ahead of them.
He found a place to sit and unrolled the satellite photograph between
them. Picking out the major peaks and features of the scene, they
orientated themselves and began to make some order out of the
cataclysmic landscape that rioted below them.
"We can't see the Abbay river from here," Nicholas pointed out. "It's
still deep in the sub-gorge. We will probably only get our first glimpse
of it from almost directly above."
"If we have identified our present position accurately, then the river
will make two ox'bow bends around that bluff over there."
"Yes, and the confluence of the Dandera river with the Abbay is over
there, below those cliffs." He used his thumb knuckle as a rough scale
measure. "About fifteen miles from here."
"It looks as though the Dandera has changed its course many times over
the centuries.-I can see at least two gullies that look like ancient
river beds." She pointed down: "Mere, and there. They are all choked
with jungle now." She looked crestfallen, "Oh, Nicholas, it is such a
huge and confused area. How are we ever going to find the single
entrance to a tomb hidden in all that?"
"Tomb? What tomb is this?" Boris demanded with interest. He had come
back up the trail to find them. They had not heard his approach, and now
he stood over them.
"What tomb are you talking about?, "Why, the tomb of St. Frumentius, of
course," Nicholas told him smoothly, showing no concern at having been
overheard.
"Isn't the monastery dedicated to the saint?" Royan asked as smoothly,
as she rolled up the photograph.
"Da." He nodded, looking disappointed, as though he expected something
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.