Sheba

by Jack Higgins

  He stayed there for a moment, his chest heaving painfully. After a time, he realized that Cunningham lay beside him, and Jamal gave them a hand up and they stood knee-deep in water, shivering in the intense cold.

  The river had emptied into a large, round pool, and the only apparent exit, a narrow slot in the rock, was blocked by a wall of dressed stones which stood some three feet above the surface of the water.

  “This looks as if it’s been here a hell of a long time,” Cunningham said.

  Kane nodded. “But what purpose does it serve, that’s the question.”

  He took the spot light from Jamal and pulled himself up on top. The wall was perhaps ten feet high and water oozed through numerous cracks and ran down a steep incline, the sound of it echoing through the darkness.

  “This must have been the route the river followed originally,” Kane said. “The wall was placed here to change its direction.”

  He shone the lamp down on the dark waters of the pool. “That means they must have constructed an artificial exit for this lot.”

  “But why?” Cunningham said.

  “God knows. The reason isn’t important now, but finding a way out of this place is.” Kane placed his submachine gun on the wall and gave Cunningham the lamp. “Let me have as much light as you can. I’m going down to take a look.”

  He dropped into the water, took a deep breath, and went under. The pool was about ten feet deep, and the light from the spot lamp filtering down enabled him to find what he was looking for almost at once. It was the entrance to a low, arched tunnel some four feet high.

  He pulled himself in and went forward, his fingers brushing against the smooth, slimy sides, and then it was dark, utterly dark, and he turned in a panic and swam back toward the faint light of the lamp and surfaced, rasping for air.

  “What’s it like?” Cunningham demanded.

  Kane waded out of the water and stood knee-deep on the bank of shale beside the wall. “Bloody murder. There’s a tunnel that’s hardly big enough to crawl through. I swam along it for a few yards, but it didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

  He pulled himself up onto the wall and Cunningham turned the beam of the lamp into the slot below. “Once again we don’t seem to have a great deal of choice, do we.”

  Climbing down presented no problem. There were plenty of footholds where the mortar between blocks of stone had crumbled away, leaving a score of deep cracks through which water trickled steadily.

  The steeply inclined floor of the slot was slimy and treacherous to the feet, and Kane led the way cautiously for some fifty yards, until the roof closed in on them and they were faced with a dark opening.

  They moved inside and stood ankle-deep in water, and he flashed the lamp from side to side. As the beam splayed across smooth walls, thousands of tiny chisel marks sprang into view.

  “The river must have created this passage in the first place,” Cunningham observed, “but someone’s certainly done a hell of a lot of work on it since.”

  Kane moved forward slowly, a strange excitement stirring inside him. The sound of the river faded behind them and they were alone in a dark and mysterious world.

  The passage twisted and turned, moving down all the time, and the water gradually deepened. As they rounded a corner, they came to an off-shoot at one side.

  Cunningham glanced at Kane inquiringly and Kane shrugged. “May as well take a look.”

  They moved into a room about ten feet square with walls of drafted masonry. Great store jars, each almost as tall as a man, stood like silent sentinels on either side.

  “Grain jars,” Kane said.

  As he turned away, the beam of the lamp fell across the far wall and figures leapt to life in vivid color.

  The painting depicted some ancient triumph. Prisoners, most of whom seemed to have short, curling beards, moved together in a column, legs shackled, backs bowed against the whips brandished by soldiers in fish-tailed breastplates and helmets.

  “My God,” Cunningham said. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “Only in the Nile Valley,” Kane told him. “Certainly not in Arabia.”

  They moved out into the passage and continued past several other storerooms, finally coming into a wider, pillared passage, the walls of which were covered with paintings.

  At one point Kane halted beside a nook inside which stood several clay jars with painted sides. As he lifted one down to examine it, Cunningham moved forward excitedly. “They’re funeral urns, aren’t they?”

  Kane nodded. “The whole thing’s beginning to click into place. Those grain jars and now these. Offerings to the gods for a safe journey. We must be coming to a tomb.”

  He lifted the round lid of the jar and looked inside. It was empty. “Probably oil or spices or something like that—gone with the years.”

  Cunningham took down another jar which also proved to be empty. Kane was about to turn away when he noticed a smaller one, the top held in place by clay seals, standing on a small shelf at the back of the nook.

  He put down the lamp with one hand and lifted the jar with the other. As he stepped back, it slipped from his fingers and smashed against the stone floor of the passage.

  He lifted the lamp, and as he directed the beam on the floor there was a glint of gold amongst the sharded pieces of clay and a flash of green fire.

  He dropped to one knee and carefully picked it up. It was a beautiful gold necklace and pendant. Carefully set in the gold filigree were three perfect emeralds, sparkling in the lamplight.

  Cunningham whistled softly. “They’d give their eyeteeth to have that in the British Museum.”

  Kane took out his handkerchief and wrapped it carefully about the necklace, knotting the ends before placing it in his pocket.

  He picked up the lamp again. “I’ve an idea there’s more up ahead. Much more.”

  He moved on quickly and they descended a short flight of steps and faced a bronze door. By now the water was thigh-deep and Cunningham waded forward to lift the locking bar, and he and Jamal pulled the heavy door slowly outwards.

  The bronze swing pins were set in holes drilled in the solid rock, and the door swung open effortlessly with a slight, eerie cracking sound.

  For a moment Kane stood there, a wave of grayness sweeping through him as if by instinct he knew that they were on the verge of something tremendous, and then Cunningham pushed him forward impatiently.

  14

  THEY ENTERED A LARGE CHAMBER WHICH WAS ABOUT three feet deep in water. It was otherwise completely empty, but the walls were covered with paintings. Kane swung the beam of the lamp slowly along, carefully examining them, and something jumped out at him with the force of a physical shock.

  The particular scene depicted a king standing before his throne at the top of a flight of steps. Around his neck was suspended the Star of David. He was holding out his hands in welcome to a woman who advanced to meet him, her long train carried by twelve maidens.

  For a moment, she seemed to float out of the darkness, but it was only a trick of the light. She gazed out at him, remote and austere, her beauty fixed for eternity, and he stared back. Above the painting was an inscription in Sabean. He translated it slowly, and when he had finished the wall seemed to undulate and a strange, quiet whisper rippled through the room as though her voice called to him across time itself.

  He stretched out a hand and leaned his head against the cold stonework, and behind him Cunningham said, “What does it say?”

  Kane pulled himself together. “It says ‘Solomon the Great King greets Balquis.’ ”

  Cunningham seemed to lurch to one side, and Jamal moved in quickly and caught him. In the light of the lamp, the Englishman’s face looked white and drawn, the eyes suddenly enormous.

  “Balquis,” he whispered. “Queen of Sheba.”

  He pulled away from Jamal and moved forward and touched the painted figure very gently with his fingertips. When he spoke there was awe in his voice. “A biblical l
egend and we’ve brought her to life.”

  Kane turned and waded toward the far end of the chamber and the rays of the lamp picked out another entrance flanked by carved pillars. In place of a door there was a wall of large dressed stones.

  Cunningham moved beside him. “What do you think?” he said and his voice was strained and unnatural.

  “There was a strong Egyptian influence here,” Kane told him. “There must be a stone burial chamber on the other side.”

  Cunningham seemed to have difficulty in speaking. He swallowed and said, “Do you think it might be hers?”

  “Anything’s possible in this business,” Kane said. “You know that as well as I do.”

  Cunningham nodded several times and turned and looked back toward the wall painting. Waves caused by their movement through the water rippled across the room and splashed against the wall, and his breath hissed sharply between his teeth.

  He grabbed the lamp from Kane’s hand, plunged forward, water foaming around him, and dropped to his knees at the base of the painting of Solomon and Balquis.

  He gave a cry of anguish. “The water, Kane. It’s spoiling it. Part of the painting’s gone already.”

  Kane took the lamp from him and pulled him to his feet without saying anything.

  “Thank God we’ve made the discovery when we have,” Cunningham said. “Another couple of years and that dam back there would have been down and the river flowing in. Everything would have been ruined.”

  “I know,” Kane said calmly.

  Cunningham laughed wildly. “For God’s sake, man, don’t you realize what we’ve found here? The greatest archaeological discovery ever made. We’ll be world famous.”

  “That’s hardly likely,” Kane said, “because the way things look, you may never get the chance to tell anybody about it.”

  He turned from the sudden shock on the Englishman’s face, gave the lamp to Jamal, and they waded toward the door. Cunningham stayed there in the middle of the chamber, and they were already moving back along the passage before he started to follow.

  As they ducked through the low entrance and climbed the steep incline to the wall that dammed in the pool, Cunningham caught up with Kane and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  His face was white and strained, taut with anxiety. “We’ve got to get out of here now, Kane. We must find a way.”

  “Finding a way is simple enough,” Kane said. “I realize that now. The problem for you will be whether you’re willing to take it.”

  Jamal quickly climbed the wall and then reached down and pulled them up in turn. Kane took the lamp and played the beam down into the pool, and Cunningham said, “You mean the underwater tunnel? But you said it was impossible.”

  “It wouldn’t be if there was no water in it,” Kane said.

  Cunningham frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s really quite simple. We go back up-river for the tools we left in the cave. The wall’s already in a pretty shaky state. It wouldn’t take us long to demolish enough of it to drain the pool and send the river back on its old course.”

  Cunningham still had that slight frown on his face. “But you must be joking. It would flood the passage and the main chamber, probably even seep into the tomb. Those wall paintings wouldn’t last a day under water. They’d be destroyed forever.”

  “I know,” Kane said patiently. “On the other hand, I can’t see that we have a great deal of choice. I’m assuming, of course, that you still have an interest in your wife’s welfare.”

  Cunningham flinched as if he had received a physical blow. He turned away as Kane continued, “There’s no need for you to come. Jamal and I can manage, but I’m afraid we’ll have to take the lamp. I’ll try to be as quick as possible.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Cunningham said without turning round. “I’ll be fine.”

  For a moment Kane hesitated, wondering whether the Englishman intended to do something silly, and then he shrugged and turned and explained the situation quickly in Arabic to Jamal.

  The Somali took the lamp and led the way back up the rock slide and into the dark mouth of the tunnel through which the river emptied into the pool. The journey was not as bad as Kane had thought it would be, except for one or two deeper places where the gap narrowed and the current seemed to be trying to press him back with an implacable hand.

  When they reached the steep bank of shale and scrambled up to the mouth of the tunnel which had granted them their freedom from the cave, it had a strangely unfamiliar look like some place visited once and briefly years before and never again.

  Kane carried the three picks, and Jamal the hammers and crowbars, and they went down the bank and entered the water again.

  The return journey seemed only to take minutes and, as Jamal carefully negotiated the slide down into the pool, the beam of the lamp splashed out across the wall. There was no sign of the Englishman.

  They dropped the tools quickly and Kane took the lamp and called, “Cunningham!”

  The sound of his voice rebounded from the narrow walls of the cave, but there was no reply. He was about to call out again when there was the sound of a boot on stone in the darkness below. He shone the beam down into the slot and picked out Cunningham coming up the steep incline.

  The Englishman looked up at him calmly, shading his eyes against the light. “You were quicker than I thought.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” Kane demanded.

  Cunningham turned and looked back down the incline to the entrance to the tunnel. “I went for another look.”

  “Without a light?” Kane said incredulously.

  Cunningham smiled, and all at once the strain seemed to have left his face. “I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was there.” He took a deep breath. “Down here at the base looks a good place to start. Some of these stones are half rotten.”

  Kane couldn’t think of anything to say. He nodded to Jamal and went over the wall, and the Somali passed the tools down to them and they started work.

  It took them half an hour to lever out the first stone and Jamal’s great strength proved invaluable. The pressure of the water pushed the stone the last few inches like a cork from a bottle, and a great foaming jet splashed out into the slot and rushed down into the darkness below.

  Once the gap had been made, the rest was easy. Jamal reached in, water cascading over his back, and pulled the next stone away by hand.

  Within a moment they were knee-deep in water, and Kane turned quickly to Cunningham. “Now we’ve made the breach, the whole damned lot might come down. We’d better get back on the other side out of harm’s way.”

  They climbed over the wall and stood on the bank of shale and sand that had been formed by the years in the corner of the wall and the cave, and gradually the level of the pool dropped.

  By now, as it emerged from the slide, the river was finding its new exit and the wall started to vibrate with the shock. After about half and hour, it sagged in the center and then cascaded outwards into the slot.

  Already the top of the tunnel was showing, and within another ten minutes there was no more than two feet of water in it. The Somali took the lamp and ducked into the tunnel, and Kane slipped the sling of his submachine gun over his shoulder and followed.

  As he plunged forward into the darkness, water swirling around his knees, he thought of the men who had worked here in the bowels of the earth all those years ago. Worked in the darkness patiently, perhaps for years, that their Queen might have a secure resting place in death.

  The river emptied into a wide lake with startling suddenness, and he found himself swimming again. Jamal held the lamp high above his head, and its rays picked out a row of carved pillars on the far side and a landing stage.

  The Somali reached it first and heaved himself up with easy strength in spite of the fact that the water level of the lake had obviously dropped several feet. He then knelt down and pulled up Kane and Cunningham in turn.

  Kane took the
lamp and moved forward between the pillars and entered a wide passage which sloped gently upwards. A few moment later, the beam from the lamp splayed itself against a blank wall.

  He dropped to one knee and examined it closely. “From the look of it, this central block pivots,” he said to Cunningham.

  He spoke rapidly in Arabic to Jamal, and the Somali dropped to his knee and pushed against the great stone wall with all his strength. It refused to budge. The Somali gave a grunt and his back ridged, muscles standing out like cords. Still the stone remained immobile.

  Kane dropped to his knees and leaned a shoulder against the stone and Cunningham moved in on the other side. For a moment, it was as if they were faced with all the power in the world, as if something supernatural was determined they should not leave, and then the stone turned with a groan.

  Kane scrambled to his feet and looked about him. They were standing in the temple and the stone was one of those set in the base of the high altar.

  They pushed it back into place, moved outside, and stood on the terrace, the morning sun bright in their eyes. The gorge lay still and calm about them and Cunningham frowned. “It’s damned quiet.”

  “Most of the Bedouins pulled out with that caravan yesterday afternoon,” Kane reminded him. “The rest have probably made an early start this morning.”

  He led the way cautiously toward the encampment, using what cover was available. When he neared the edge of the hollow, he got down on his belly and crawled the rest of the way.

  The encampment no longer existed. Tents, trucks—everything had gone. For a moment he lay there, a frown on his face, and then Jamal tapped him on the shoulder and pointed beyond the oasis to where a faint tracer of smoke lifted into the morning air.

  Kane led the way down into the hollow, unslinging his submachine gun. As they neared the trees, a camel coughed and there was the sound of laughter.

  On the other side of the oasis, two Bedouin tents still stood with at least a dozen camels hobbled nearby. One man squatted before a small fire on which he was cooking and three more stood knee-deep in the pool and washed themselves.