"Is there a back stairs, Zoraya?"
"Where do you wish to go?" she asked.
"Into the woods. Your house won't be safe. They may try for Amr again. The two men you saw weren't alone. If we don't get away quickly, we'll be trapped. Right now, I think the guards have left their posts on the other side of the villa. We've got to get away. We can't count on the police to help."
"You are right. And if you hadn't been here tonight . . ."
"Perhaps I brought this with me, when I came to Elba."
"No, I understand Amr's importance," she said. "He has been approached by the Q'adi Ghezri and Colonel Ta'arife. Amr telephoned me last night; he wanted to know what to do. He trusted me, but—he could not resist his obscene pleasures." Her voice was bitter. "Come, follow me. I will show you a safe way out."
Her figure was a swaying sheath of gold in the dim back corridors of the villa. Durell felt Amr stir on his shoulder. He would have to talk fast and persuasively when Amr awoke. And there was no telling what drugs or liquor influenced the man now.
A back door led them into a small garden of boxwood hedges. Statuary gleamed dimly in the moonlight. The mountain air smelled of pine and the salt sea, a relief after the fleshy odors in the house.
"There is a gate here," Zoraya said. "One moment."
He had been right about the guards. None were in sight on this side of the villa. The panic among the guests had drawn away those who had been posted here. But they would be back soon.
Tomorrow, Durell thought grimly, there would be much to explain to the police. The Count d'Igli would probably relish the notoriety following the spate of wild stories and juicy morsels of scandal.
He followed Zoraya quickly down a short path between the hedges and abruptly found himself in untended woods beyond the landscaped grounds. The path pitched down sharply through groves of pine. The wind blew cold through the soughing branches, and shadows leaped all around them.
'The main road is just beyond," said the girl. "But we must climb a stone wall ahead. Is Amr very heavy?"
"He's not the lad he used to be." Durell smiled. "Is there any other way down the mountain except the auto road?"
"Only a few goat paths in the vineyards and orchards."
"We'll go that way. It's less dangerous."
They moved on in silence. The girl was hampered by her tight, golden sari. Moonlight guided them, sliding through the pines. Then the high stone wall surrounding the d'Igli estate loomed ahead. Durell paused, sweating under the weight of his inert burden.
"Can you climb the wall?" he asked the girl.
"If you look the other way. My sari . . ."
The man on Durell's shoulder began to giggle. Durell had only this brief warning that Amr was conscious before the man began struggling to get down on his feet.
"You both speak," Amr gasped, in English, "as if my life had some value. Why should you try to save it? My word, please put me down. This is most undignified, you know."
Durell let the short, fat man slide off his shoulders. Amr promptly collapsed to the pine needles on the ground. Durell propped him against the stone wall that blocked their way. "Speak softly, Bogo, or your throat will be cut. Do you understand what happened? The assassins in the house are not alone."
"I see only you and poor Zoraya."
"You will not see the others, next time. The next time they will not fail."
"Where did you come from, Cajun? I am still surprised—"
"I was sent here to help you."
"I heard that you worked for your government."
"Yes. They sent me."
"To save me? Or to kill me?"
"To take you home."
The man giggled. His mouth was loose. "Kill me here, then. Do it now. It will be easier and quicker, and all the same."
"No."
"I will not go home."
"I think I can persuade you," said Durell.
"I think not. Go away now. I command you to release me."
"You'll come with us," Durell said, "if I have to knock you out again and carry you some more. Take your choice. Walk or ride. But you come with us."
"To Zoraya's? She will kidnap me at last. She will take me to her nest after all her years of fruitless pursuit?" Prince Amr suddenly straightened, his round face now thick with anger. "Nonsense. It was Tarya, the dancer, I was to have tonight. A new sensation, you see. First the leopard, then the prince." He giggled again, his head lolling. "It is so difficult to conceive of something new for amusement."
"I've thought of something for you," Durell said grimly.
"Oh?"
"You're going to act like a man."
Zoraya got over the wall without help, and then whispered back that all was clear. Durell was not so sure. He thought he heard crackling in the brush behind them, the sound of swift, searching passage. He waited a moment, then ordered Amr over the wall.
"But it is not dignified," Amr objected.
"You will climb, or be carried over."
"Cajun, tell me the truth . . . where did you come from?"
"Out of your past," Durell said. "Now, climb!"
"If you strike an al-Maari, the penalty is death."
"Then I've already incurred that penalty, Bogo. Once, long ago, at MacTivers' place, remember? And tonight. Let's get over the wall. Zoraya is waiting."
"One moment." The prince paused. His dark eyes, searching Durell's face, reflected dim moonlight. His mouth opened slackly. "All at once I fear I am sick."
"You can be sick later. Are you less than a woman—unable to climb the wall?"
"I will climb. Under protest."
Durell had to help him. The man's muscles were soft. His breath came in short, uncertain gasps. There was a grunt as he fell to the other side, then Zoraya's quick, concerned whisper. Durell scaled the wall in one easy leap, then paused to survey the woodland behind them.
He had been right. There were searchers in the woods, swift and anxious, ranging through the shadows. He looked ahead, down the mountain slope. The road was empty in the moonlight. At least it looked empty. But he decided not to trust it.
It took fifteen minutes to reach the edge of the switchback. From behind and above the auto road came the sound of motor cars, and the sky was luminous with all the lights from the Villa d'Igli. The way down the mountainside had been rough, a stumbling flight through rugged brush and over uncertain hedges. Every now and then the prince slipped and fell and giggled, or cursed. Durell and Zoraya helped him up each time.
At the roadside he fell to his knees and stayed there.
"Get up," Durell said.
"I cannot."
"Do you want to die here?"
"I will die where Allah wills me to die."
"You would surrender like a weakling?" Durell asked harshly.
Zoraya murmured, "Don't. Please."
Amr lifted his round, soft face. He was covered with dirt, sweaty and shaken. His sleek appearance had been wiped out by their flight down the mountain.
"Where are we running? And why?"
"There is a plan to kill you, so you won't go home."
"Who wants to kill me? I do nothing but spend money and die a little, each day."
"We don't know who it is, for certain. Colonel Ta'arife, perhaps, afraid you will return to Jidrat and replace the Imam Yazid. You are dangerous there because you are still popular with the Jidratti. The people there are sure you will return to help them."
"Bah! The people!" Amr breathed in contempt. "Those filthy peasants. Desert kites. Eaters of camel dung."
"They're all yours," Durell said.
'Traitors. Capitalists. Reds. I do not care for all that confusion. I have my own interests."
"Drugs? Women?"
"Why not?"
"Perhaps because Allah had you born as a man; and not just an ordinaiy man, but an al-Maari, a Prince of Jidrat."
"I am not religious any longer."
"We'll see," Durell said. "Now get on your feet."
"We'll walk. And not on the highway. We—"
Durell heard the car coasting downgrade, just the rumble of tires on the gravel. It came downhill without lights, its motor shut off. But the red brake-light suddenly flared, betraying it as it came around the curve, shining through the flickering pines.
"Get down!"
They fell, side by side, to the pine needles beside the road. The car was a Lancia. Durell raised his head carefully and tried to see the men inside. There were three he was sure of. Two angular, anonymous faces in the front seat; another blurred shadow in the back.
All at once, before Durell could stop him, Prince Amr lurched upright. "It is the count!" he cried. "My friend d'Igli! He will help—"
"You fool!"
It was too late. The Lancia braked with a lurch and a voice called in Italian, softly, coaxingly. The prince was on his feet when the first shot came. Durell dove at him, brought him tumbling down, rolling across the highway. He did not have to give orders to Zoraya. There were more shots, quick and spiteful bullets that whipped overhead as they fell down the grade on the opposite side of the road. Amr had paused for one moment of incredulous dismay over the fact that his friend, the Count d'Igli, had betrayed him—and then instinct spurred him to try to save himself.
Car doors slammed, thudded, were silent. They were in a fruit orchard on a broad terrace on the mountainside, with the symmetrically shaped trees making geometric patterns and aisles in the moonlight. Amr floundered, fell, picked himself up again.
"Stop!" a man shouted from behind them.
Durell still had the machine pistol. He called to Amr and Zoraya to keep going, then turned to face the ridge of the highway above. Dark shadows moved, leaping down toward the orchard. He squeezed the trigger lightly and sent a quick burst of racketing fire over their heads. The shadows dropped away instantly. Turning, Durell ran again.
Two shots followed. They were not going to give up easily.
The orchard ended in a low wall that dropped to the next terraced field below. This new field was a vineyard. The sound of the sea came louder, from surf bursting against the rocks of a small cove below. A path led through the vineyard, toward the loom of a stone farmhouse. The house was in total darkness. From behind them came no sounds. The pursuit was momentarily halted.
The girl stumbled, and Durell helped her up. She leaned against him, breathing in tortured gasps. "I don't know if I can go on. My feet . . ." She had lost her sandals and been running barefooted.
Durell looked at Amr. The prince sat on the ground, his head between his knees. No help there, Durell thought. He looked back desperately. The sound of a motor suddenly came down the mountainside. Perhaps the pursuers thought it would be easier to follow by using their car. Easier, and safer.
"Where can we go?" Zoraya asked. "My house is not a good place."
"No."
"There is a beach nearby. It is supposed to have been one of the favorite spots of Napoleon and the Countess Walewska. It is secluded, although during the day the tourists come there."
"Can you walk there?"
She looked at the farmhouse. "Or perhaps in that barn . . ."
"It would be searched. The beach is safer."
"I can do it," she decided.
They went on.
A dog barked briefly at them as they passed the farm, but he was tied up, and there was no danger. Yet the shrill yapping gave away their position, Durell thought. He hurried the girl and Amr on. She knew the way. A series of further terraces, fields, orchards and vineyards, then another farmhouse, a darkened villa, and then they had to cross the road again. This time they waited until there was no chance of being seen—and even then they ran in the shadows, the prince staggering, breathing harshly, mouth open.
A small stone house stood on the beach in the cove under a grove of pines. It was dark except for the glow of th_e moon on the sea. The surf made a gentle splashing on the coarse black sand. Durell paused and let the girl and Amr sink down to rest. He was sweating lightly. He looked at his watch. It was only a little after ten o'clock. There was no way to get off the island of Elba now. And the only way tomorrow would be by the ferry to Piombino, on the mainland.
Zoraya said, "May I have a cigarette? Is it safe?"
"I think so." He shook one free of his pack and lit it for her. In the tiny bomb-flare of the match he saw that her face was not as composed as it had been before. It was as if, now that they had stopped running for the moment, everything she had tried to ignore by her strength of body and mind came back to overpower her. He felt a quick, deep compassion for her and respect for what she had that had carried her this far.
"What is it?" she asked. "Why do you look at me like that?"
"I was thinking of you when you were a child and we first met, that dawn, so long ago."
"I was not a child then," she said.
"You were only twelve."
"But I was not a child," she repeated. "And I remembered you, too. For a time, you made me forget my duty and my purpose in life."
"I don't understand."
"I was born to be the wife of Prince Amr al-Maari of Jidrat. To raise sons and heirs for his throne. It is an ancient, proud family. Its roots go back to the time of the Prophet. I was taught that my mind and my body were dedicated to perpetuating that lineage. Prince Amr is the last true male of the al-Maaris. So I am dedicated to him."
"That's rather a feudal way of looking at things, today."
"Yes. But my country is a feudal land, whatever modernism has come to it through the discovery of oil. Oil has not blurred or filmed my vision, Durell. I know why I am on this earth."
"You said you once forgot your duty."
She smiled. Her amber eyes were wistful and amused.
"Yes. You see, I fell in love with yon, Durell."
"And you say you were not a child then?" he smiled.
"No, I was a woman. As much a woman as I am today. It was long ago, but I did not forget you, did I? I knew you at once."
He said nothing, and she smiled and laughed at something in her memory and smoked her cigarette. She sat on the dark, cool sand and hugged her knees. The golden sari was torn in places, but she could make rags look like the gown of a queen,
Dnrell thought. The moonlight tangled in her dark hair and shone in her eyes.
"I wonder if it was a mistake to see you again/' she said at last. "1 asked no questions 1 believed you at once. I trusted you and went to d'Igh's villa and I saw things I swore I would never be degraded rv seeing."
"Forget that," he sa'd roughly.
"I cannot. I saw Ann. ] lool at him now." She turned her head and stared at the prinre He was sprawled fae< down, in the sand in oblivious exhaustion. If he heard their words, he gave no sign of it. The girl's voice hardened. "I look at you and then I see him and I remember how I felt about you, so lon£ ago. And that is the mistake, I think."
"Zoraya . . ."
"Because I could love you again," she said softly.
Chapter Ten
The stone cottage on the beach was vacant and they slept there, on the flagged floor. Durell watched from the doorway, the gun ready at hand. They might be trailed here, he thought. The enemy was always efficient, always dangerous. There was little time for rest, and no time to think of what the girl had said, or what it could mean, or if this complication could be turned to good or bad in the job he had to do.
The prince could be handled, at least for the next twenty-four hours, while the drugs and the shock of the near-successful attempt on his life made him pliable. Afterward, a lifetime of arrogant command and a habit of petulant demands and self-indulgence would make him more difficult. But by then, Durell decided, they would be safely on their way.
He sat in the dark and watched the silver fade from the surface of the sea as the moon went down behind the mountains of Elba. The thought touched him that Napoleon, a century and a half ago, might have sat here, too,
looking at the same sea and the same land, and that nothing here had changed since then. He wondered what the Emperor had thought in his days of imprisonment here, seeing the Italian shore so near and knowing that just beyond were the shattered ruins of empire and glory. True, here he had hatched his scheme for the Hundred Days that ended in Waterloo and a safer exile on St. Helena. Napoleon had been fat and testy then, a victim of delusive grandeurs, the secret butt of many jokes told against him by the peasant Elbani who had seen conquerors come and go through the times of the Etruscans and the Romans, the Medicis and the Nazis.
The world hadn't changed much since Napoleon's time, Durell thought. Men still tried to shake the world during their brief stay on earth. They still brought death and misery to the millions who stood in their way. Yet the sea went on, the tides rose and fell, the moon shone, as always, on the eternal mountains and plains of the earth.
But today, eternity held a different meaning. Today the mountains and the seas were not eternal. Man had put his
hands on the ultimate weapons of destruction. He could erase the universe, if he so chose—or if another Napoleon arose to try his hand at conquest.
Durell watched the shadows on the beach, the dark angle of the mountain path by which they had come down. Nothing stirred. There was no alarm.
There did not have to be, he thought grimly. Elba was a tight island, rugged and mountainous, but highly organized. They could not hide here forever. And there was only the ferry by which to escape.
They would watch the ferry, of course.
"Durell?"
He turned and saw Amr standing in the cottage doorway.
"I will talk to you now," the Arab said.
"Come and sit down, then."
"Thank you. First, the truth. Did you come to save my life?"
"Yes."
Assignment Zoraya Page 9
