"Higgins, Jack - Sheba" - читать интересную книгу автора (Higgins Jack)

'And knowing, you made no attempt to prevent it?'

Omar looked pained. 'I could not possibly interfere with another man's blood feud.'

Kane started to laugh. An expression of complete bewilderment appeared on Omar's face, and Kane took Ruth Cunningham's arm and led her away, still laughing.

'What was all that about?' she said. 'I find all this Arabic frustrating.'

'You wouldn't understand,' he told her. 'A private joke.'

As they walked towards the airstrip she said, 'That was wonderful coffee we had. Who was the woman - his wife?'

Kane shook his head. 'A household slave.'

'Surely you're joking,' she said.

He smiled gently. 'Didn't you notice the mark of the hot iron on Jamal's forehead? He was a slave in the Yemen. They cut out his tongue the first time he tried to escape. There are thousands of slaves in most parts of Arabia still.'

She shuddered and they continued the rest of the way in silence. When they reached the plane, the only signs of the fight were several patches of blood in the sand of the runway. Kane pushed her into the cabin and clambered up behind. He wasted no time, and a few moments later they were climbing steeply into the blue sky.

They reached Shabwa within ten or fifteen minutes and Ruth Cunningham looked down with an expression of disappointment on her face. 'I can't say I find it particularly thrilling.'

Kane nodded. 'Not very imposing, I agree, but under the sands down there are the sixty temples the Roman historian Pliny wrote about. A treasure trove for some future expedition.'

He checked the compass and turned the nose of the Rapide out into the desert. 'I've set course for Marib. According to Alexias, the temple should be somewhere out here on a direct line from Shabwa. About ninety miles, he said. Let's hope we come across something.'

He took the plane down to a height of five or six hundred feet above the sand dunes, hoping for tracks or some other sign that human beings had passed this way, but there was nothing. The desert stretched as far as the eye could see, sterile, savage and unbelievably lonely.

After some fifteen minutes, Ruth Cunningham gave him a sudden nudge. In front of them an immense sand dune that must have been seven or eight hundred feet in height, lifted into the sky, and Kane pulled back the column slightly. The engines spluttered and missed a couple of times.

He pulled the column back hard and the Rapide lifted over the top of the sand dune with only a few feet to spare, and then the engines coughed and died.

12$

The utter silence which followed was broken only by the sough of the wind in the struts and then, as the plane dipped sickeningly, Ruth Cunningham screamed.

Kane fought for control. About fifty or sixty feet above the sand, he managed to level out and then another great sand dune was rushing towards them. 'Hang on!' he said tightly, and pulled on the column with all his strength.

The Rapide swerved violently. For a moment it seemed to right itself, and then the left wingtips dipped to the sand. The aircraft spun in a circle and there was a tearing crunch of metal. Kane cried a warning and braced himself to withstand the impact as they ploughed to a halt through the soft sand.

NINE

KANE GAVE A tONG, shuddering sigh and wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of one hand. He turned and looked into the white, strained face of Ruth Cunningham. 'Are you all right?'

She nodded briefly. 'I held on tight as we went in.'

He opened the door and jumped to the ground. The nose of the Rapide was half-buried in soft sand and the left wing was crumpled and useless.

'I can't understand why we didn't catch fire,' he said with a frown and came back to the door and looked at the instrument panel. 'That's funny, the fuel tanks are empty.'