The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur. Страница 4

jarred her knee and ankle, and her attacker cried out and fell to his

knees.

Then she was away and running through the palm grove. At first she ran

without purpose or direction. She ran simply to get as far from them as

her flying legs would carry her. Then gradually she brought her panic

under control. She glanced back, but saw nobody following her.

As she reached the edge of the lake she slowed her run to conserve her

strength, and she became aware of the warm trickle of her own blood down

her arm and then dripping from her finger-tips.

She stopped.and rested her back against the rough hole of one of the

palms while she tore a strip of cloth from her ripped blouse and

hurriedly bound up her arm. She was shaking so much from shock and

exertion that even her uninjured hand was fumbling and clumsy. She

knotted the crude bandage with her teeth and left hand, and the bleeding

slowed.

She was uncertain of which way to run, and then she saw the dim

lamplight. in the window of Alia's shack across the nearest irrigation

canal. She pushed herself away from the palm trunk and started towards

it. She had covered less than a hundred paces when a voice called from

the grove behind her, speaking in Arabic, "Yusuf, has the woman come

your way?"

immediately an electric torch flashed from the darkness ahead of her and

another voice called back, "No, I have not seen her."

Another few seconds and Royan would have run full into him. She crouched

down and looked around her desperately. There was another torch coming

through the grove behind her, following the path she had taken. It must

be the man she had kicked, but she could tell by the motion of the torch

beam that he had recovered and was moving swiftly and easily again.

She was blocked on two sides, so she turned back along the edge of the

trail. The road lay that way. She might be able to meet a late vehicle

travelling on it. She lost her footing on the rough ground and went

down, bruising and scraping her knees, but she jumped up again and

hurried on. The second time she stumbled, her outthrust left hand landed

on a round, smooth stone the size of an orange. When she went on she

carried the stone with her; as a weapon it gave her a glimmer of

comfort.

Her wounded arm was beginning to hurt, and she was driven by worry for

Duraid. She knew he was badly wounded, for she had seen the direction

and force of the knife thrust. She had to find help for him. Behind her

the two men with torches were sweeping the grove and she could not keep

her lead ahead of them. They were gaining on her - she could hear them

calling to each other.

She reached the road at last, and with a small whimper of relief climbed

out of the drainage ditch on to the pale gravel surface. Her legs were

shaking under her so that they could hardly carry her weight, but she

turned in the direction of the village.

She had not reached the first bend before she saw a set of headlights

coming slowly towards her, flickering through the palm trees. She broke

into a run down the centre of the road.

"Help me!" she screamed in Arabic. "Please help me!'

The car came through the bend and before the headlights dazzled her she

saw that it was a small, darkcoloured Fiat. She stood in the centre of

the road waving her arms to halt the driver, lit by the headlights as

though she were on a theatre stage. The Fiat stopped in front of her,

and she ran round to the driver's door and tugged at the handle.

"Please, you must help me."

The door was opened from within, and then was thrown back with such

force that she staggered off-balance.

The driver leapt out into the roadway and caught her by the wrist of the

injured arm. He dragged her to the Fiat and pulled open the back door.

"Yusuf! Bacheed' he shouted into the dark grove. "I have her." And she

heard the answering cries and saw the torches turn in their direction.

The driver was forcing her head down and trying to push her into the

back seat, but she realized then that she still had the stone in her

good hand. She turned slightly and braced herself, and then swung her

fist with the stone still clenched in it against the side of his head.

It caught him squarely on the temple.

Without another sound he dropped to the gravel surface and lay

motionless.

Royan dropped the stone and pelted away down the road, but she found

that she was running straight down the path of the headlights, and they

lit her every movement.

The two men in the grove shouted again and came up on to the gravel

roadway behind her, almost shoulder to shoulder.

Glancing back, she saw them gaining on her swiftly, and she realized

that her only chance was to get off the road and back into the darkness.

She turned and plunged down the bank. Immediately she found herself

waist-deep in the waters of the lake.

In the darkness and the confusion she had become disorientated. She had

not realized that she had reached the point where the road skirted the

embankment at the water's edge. She knew that she did not have time to

climb back on to the road, and she knew also that there were thick

clumps of papyrus and reeds ahead of her, that might give her shelter.

She waded out until the bottom sloped away steeply under her feet, and

she found herself forced to swim. She broke into an awkward

breast-stroke, hampered by her skirts and her injured arm. However, her

slow and stealthy movements created almost no disturbance on the

surface, and before the men on the road had reached the point where she

had descended the bank, she reached a dense stand of reeds.

. She eased her way into the thick of them and let herself sink. Before

the water covered her nostrils she felt her toes touch the soft ooze of

the lake bottom. She stood there quietly, with just the top of her head

above the surface and her face turned away from the bank. She knew her

dark hair would not reflect the light of a probing torch.

Though the water covered her ears, she could make out the excited voices

of the men on the road. They had turned their torches down towards the

water and were shining them into the reeds, searching for her. For a

moment one of the beams played full on her head, and she drew a deep

breath ready to submerge, but the beam moved on and she realized that

they had not picked her out.

The fact that she had not been seen even in the direct torchlight

emboldened her to raise her head slightly until one ear was clear and

she could make out their voices.

They were speaking Arabic, and she recognized the voice of the one named

Bacheet. He appeared to be the leader, for he was giving the orders.

"Go in there, Yusuf, and bring the whore out."

She heard Yusuf slipping and sliding down the bank and the splash as he

hit the water.

"Further out," Bacheet ordered him. "In those reeds there, where I am

shining the torch."

"It is too deep. You know well I cannot swim. It will be over my head."

"There! Right in front of you. In those reeds. I can see her head."

Bacheet encouraged him, and Royan dreaded that they had spotted her. She

sank down as far as she could below the surface.

Yusuf splashed around heavily, moving towards where she cowered in the

reeds, when suddenly there was a thunderous commotion that startled even