upright for Sapper to take his sightings.
"Okay!" Sapper bellowed, after taking his twentieth shot. "Now I want
you on the other side of the river."
Tine!" Nicholas bellowed back. "Do you want me to fly or swim?"
Nicholas hiked three miles upstream to the ford where the trail crossed
the Dandera river, and then fought his way back through the tangled
river in undergrowth to the point on the bank opposite which Sapper lay
in the shade smoking a soothing cigarette.
"Don't rupture yourself, will you?" Nicholas yelled across the water at
him.
It was almost dark before Sapper had made all the shots he wanted, and
Nicholas was still faced with the long return trip over the ford. He
covered the last mile in almost total darkness, guided only by the
flicker of the campfires.
Wearily he stumbled into the camp and flung down the levelling staff.
"You had beer tell me that it was worth it," he tt growled at Sapper,
who did not look up from his slide rule.
He was working over his revised drawings by the glaring light of a small
butane lantern.
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"You weren't too far out in your estimates," he congratulated Nicholas.
"The river is forty'one yards wide at the critical point above the
falls, where I want to site the structure."
"All I want to know is if you will be able to throw a dam across it."
Sapper grinned and laid his finger down the side of his nose, "You get
me my ruddy front-ender, and I'll dam the bleeding Nile itself."
had eaten their dinner - another of the packs - Royan glanced across
the fire at cholas. -When she caught his eye she inclined her head in
invitation. Then she stood up and casually drifted out of camp, looking
back once to make sure he was following her. Nicholas lighted the path
with his torch as they picked their way back to the dam site and found a
boulder overlooking the water on which to sit.
He switched off the torch and they were silent for a while as their eyes
adjusted to the starlight, and then Royan whispered, "There were times
that I thought we would never return here - that it was all a dream, and
that Taita's pool never existed."
"For us perhaps it never will, without the help of the monks from the
monastery." There was a note of enquiry in his voice.
"You and Mek Nimmur win," she chuckled softly. "Of course we have to
accept their help. Mek's arguments were very convincing."
"So you agree that their reward should be the mummy of Mamose?"
"I agree that they may take whatever mummy we discover, if we discover
one at all," she qualified. "For all we know, the true mummy of Mamose
may be the one that Nogo stole."
Quite naturally he slipped his arm around her shoulders, and after a
moment she relaxed against him. -oh, Nicky, I am afraid and excited.
Afraid that all our hopes are vain, and excited that we might have found
the key to Taita's game." She turned her face to his, and he felt her
breath on his lips.
He kissed her, tenderly. Then he drew back with the warmth of her
lingering on his lips and studied her face in the starlight. She made no
movement to pull away from stead she swayed towards him, and kissed him
back., him. In At first it was a staid sisterly kiss, with her mouth
tightly losed. He brought his right hand up behind her head and weaved
his fingers into her hair, holding her face to his.
He opened his mouth over hers, and she made a little sound of dissent
through her closed lips.
Slowly, voluptuously, he worked her lips apart, and her protests died
away as he probed her mouth deely with his tongue. She was making a
contented little mewling sound now, like a kitten nursing on the teat,
and her arms went around him. She kneaded his back with strong supple
fingers, her mouth wide open to his kiss, her tongue sinuous and
slippery as it twined around his.
He slid his other hand up between their bodies and unhooked the buttons
of her shirt down as low as her belt.
She leaned back slightly in his embrace to make it easier for him. With
a delicious shock he discovered that her breasts were naked under the
thin cotton shirt. He cupped one of them in his hand: it was small and
firm, only just filling his hand. When he pinched the nipple gently , it
stiffened between his fingers like a tiny ripe strawberry.
He broke off the kiss and bowed his head to her bosom.
She moaned softly, and with one hand guided him down.
When he sucked her nipple into his mouth she gasped and hooked the nails
of her other hand into his back, like a cat responding to a caress. Her
whole body undulated in his embrace, and after a while she pulled his
mouth away. He thought for a moment that she was rejecting him, but then
she moved his head across and placed her other nipple in his mouth. Once
again she gasped as he sucked it in.
Her movements became mote abandoned, keeping pace with his own arousal.
He could restrain himself no longer and he reached up under her khaki
culottes and laid his hand on the plump mound of her sex. Then with one
swift lithe movement she broke away and sprang to her feet. She stood
back from him, smoothing down her culottes and buttoning her shirt with
fingers that trembled
"I am so sorry, Nicky. I want to, oh God, you will never know how much I
want to. But-' she shook her head and she was panting wildly, "not yet.
Please, Nicky, forgive me. I am caught between two worlds. One half of
me wants this so very much but the other half will not allow me He stood
up and kissed her chastely. "There is no hurry. Good things are worth
waiting for," he told her with his mouth just touching hers. "Come! I
will take you home now."
while it was still dark the next morning, the first levy of priests that
Mai Metemma had promised came filing up the valley. Their chanting awoke
the camp, and everyone came sleepily out of their thatched lean-to
shelters to welcome the Ion column of holy men.
"Sweet heavens," Nicholas yawned, "it looks as though we have started
another crusade. They must have left the monastery in the middle of the
night to get here at this hour." He went to find Tessay, and when he did
he told her, "You are hereby appointed official translator. Sapper
speaks not a word of either Arabic or Amharic. Stick close to him."
As soon as it was fully light, Mek and Nicholas left camp to reconnoitr
the drop site. By noon they had agreed that there was only one
possibility: they would have to use the valley itself Compared to the
rocky ridges that surrounded them, the floor of the valley was level and
fairly free of obstructions. It was imperative that the drop should take
place as close to the dam site as possible, for every mile that the
stores must be manhandled would add immeasurably to the time and effort
needed for the work.
"Time is the major factor," Nicholas told Mek as they stood in the
chosen drop zone the following morning.
"Every day counts from now until the rains break."
Mek looked up at the sky. "Pray God for late rains." They marked out
their drop site a mile down from the river, along the stretch where the
valley was widest and there was a clear approach through a gap in the