A Moment in Time Read online

  'Hey, Christie, come and take a look at this!' His excited voice drew her swiftly back to the present. 'I think we have been excavating in the wrong place.'

  The wet, spiky grass brushed against her legs when she walked towards the edge of the donga and stared down into it. A portion of the donga wall had caved in during the storm earlier that afternoon, and objects were jutting out of the remaining wall to reveal what looked like a treasure house of relics.

  'That,' Dennis gestured expressively, 'will have to be removed with the utmost care, but look at this.'

  He went down on his haunches and used his fingers to gently dig the mud away around an odd-looking object which projected from the reddish-brown soil at his feet.

  'What is it?' she asked curiously.

  'If I'm not mistaken, it's an iron spearhead,' Dennis enlightened her with growing excitement. 'Jump down and give me a hand.'

  Christie did not need a second invitation. His excitement had fired her with a strange enthusiasm and, with a total disregard for her appearance, she slithered down into the donga and knelt down in the mud beside Dennis. Together, and very carefully, they dug the object out of the mud with their fingers until it lay in Dennis's hands. Christie sat back on her heels and was lost in thought while she observed Dennis. His face was aglow with satisfaction and pride, and a barely concealed excitement. Was this how Lyle had looked whenever he had found something of interest? Did his harsh features also soften with an expression of almost boyish delight?

  They sat for some time studying what might have been an implement of war, or a weapon with which the warrior had hunted down food for his family, and Christie's curiosity finally got the better of her.

  'How old would you say it is?'

  'I would say it dates back a thousand years… maybe less,' he shrugged. 'The professor will know for sure whether this is a relic from the Iron Age.'

  He put the spearhead aside carefully, and continued digging gently in the area where he had found it, while Christie resumed her digging a little distance from him. She did not expect to find anything but, when her fingers eventually encountered something hard and smooth, she could not hide her excitement.

  'Here's something else,' she said, her voice a whisper and her heart pounding while her fingers probed gently. 'It feels like an earthenware pot.'

  'Be careful how you handle it,' Dennis warned hastily, leaving his own digging to kneel beside her. 'Whatever you do, don't force it out of the soil, or we might destroy something of archaeological value.'

  'Don't you think I should ask Professor Venniker to join us here?' she questioned, leaving the digging to Dennis.

  'Yes,' he nodded enthusiastically, 'and round up the rest of the team while you're in the camp.'

  Christie climbed out of the donga, her sandalled feet slipping and her fingers digging deep into the mud to steady herself. She paused for a moment when she stood on the edge, and she smiled down at Dennis. 'This was your lucky day.'

  'Only because you were here with me.'

  'Thanks,' she laughed off his remark. 'I can feel myself shrinking to the size of a lucky charm.'

  Her fine-boned features were devoid of humour, however, when she walked back to the camp. She did not want Dennis to develop a serious attachment to her. He had shown her kindness and consideration from the moment they had met, and she had been fortunate enough to share in his exciting discovery, but she knew that she could never offer him more than a casual friendship. She did not want to hurt him, and she could only hope that, if he was hovering on the edge of something more than friendship, he would have the good sense to know that there could be nothing else between them.

  Lyle was still in his tent where she had left him almost an hour ago. The book was open on his lap, but he was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, and she marvelled, as she had always done, at the length and thickness of his black lashes.

  'Lyle?' she murmured his name in a soft query, and his eyelids lifted at once. His critical glance shifted slowly down the length of her, and it was then that she became aware of what a frightful mess she must look. Her legs and hands were caked with mud, and her clothes were filthy. Embarrassment sent the colour flaring into her cheeks, and she wanted to turn and run from the mockery in his eyes, but the purpose of her mission gave her the courage to stay and face him. 'Dennis has found something in a donga beneath the digging site which he thinks you should take a look at, and perhaps the rest of the group could come as well,' she informed him in a breathless rush.

  The mockery left his eyes at once. He snapped the book shut, put it aside, and rose to his feet in one lithe movement. 'Let's go,' he snapped.

  The students were rounded up and, with Christie leading, they walked at a brisk pace up the hill towards the donga. A few bantering remarks were passed about Christie's dishevelled appearance, and some actually scoffed at the idea that Dennis may have found something of interest, but Lyle maintained a stony silence until they reached the donga, where Dennis had succeeded in prising the earthenware pot from the muddy soil.

  A silence descended on the group as they gathered at the edge of the donga, but it was a silence laced with a quivering expectancy while Lyle's experienced glance took in the situation. Dennis looked up at him proudly, waiting as if for a signal from Lyle, and when it came the iron spearhead and the earthenware pot changed hands. Lyle studied the spearhead and passed it on to be circulated among the group, but he gave a great deal more attention to the earthenware pot which, unfortunately, had a sizeable piece missing out of its rim.

  'It's Iron Age, wouldn't you say so, Professor?' Dennis spoke at last, breaking through the murmur of excited voices.

  'It certainly appears to be, but we shan't know for certain until we have made an in-depth study of the strata.' Lyle frowned down at the pot in his hands, his fingers uncovering an engraved area beneath a layer of mud, then he glanced at Dennis and barked out an instruction. 'Mark the spot where you found these items, and leave that wall undisturbed. We'll cover this section of the donga with a canvas, and we'll move the equipment down here in the morning to start excavations in earnest.'

  Christie stood a little aside from the group, and her glance was drawn irrevocably towards Lyle. His long-fingered hands were gently cradling the pot while he examined it, and there was a hint of a smile hovering about his stern mouth which gave Christie the impression that he was having difficulty in hiding his own enthusiasm. Dennis climbed out of the donga after carrying out Lyle's instructions, and Lyle's smile deepened when he glanced at the young man. 'Good work, Dennis.'

  'It was Christie who found the earthenware pot, Professor,' Dennis enlightened him and, smiling broadly, he came to Christie's side and hugged her excitedly.

  'Perhaps we'll make an archaeologist of her yet,' Lyle remarked cynically after a brief, electrifying pause while his glance rested on the arm that lingered about Christie's slender waist. He lost interest in her the next instant and directed his gaze at Dennis. 'Let's get back to the camp, then you can bring a couple of chaps up here to help you with the canvas.'

  'Yes, sir,' Dennis grinned, allowing Christie to wriggle herself free of his arm.

  What had begun as an excursion for practice and experience, had now become a bona fide excavation of relics which possibly dated back a thousand years, and if anyone had considered this trip a waste of time, then Dennis's discovery had put a buoyancy in their step. The excitement that rippled through the camp that afternoon was almost tangible, and it was contagious. Christie felt so much a part of it all that everything else was temporarily forgotten, and she was humming softly to herself when she went down the pool to wash herself. She bathed and changed into a clean pair of shorts and a shirt. She washed the things she had discarded, and she was still humming when she wrung out the excess water before wrapping her clothes in her towel.

  Lyle was sitting in the office section of his tent when Christie approached it. Armed with a soft brush, he was removing the mud which clung to the
earthenware pot, and there was intense concentration on his hawk-like features. Driven by curiosity, she stepped into the tent, and when she glanced at the pot over his shoulder she could almost understand why he found it so interesting that he appeared to be unaware of her presence. The engraving on the pot was not the usual, patterned design. It was engraved with an elephant holding its trunk aloft, and warriors were kneeling in its path with their faces pressed to the ground.

  'That's an odd design.' Christie murmured her thoughts out loud without intending to, and Lyle looked up for the first time to acknowledge her presence with a cold, impersonal glance.

  'I'm beginning to think that the legend of Indlovukazi has more reality attached to it than people have given it credit for.'

  'What legend is this?' Christie questioned him, her glance still resting on the unusual design.

  'Are you interested, or are you trying to be polite?'

  'I'm interested,' she admitted, ignoring his sarcasm, and pulling up a chair to sit close to where Lyle was studying the relic she had discovered in the donga. 'Doesn't the name Indlovukazi have something to do with an elephant?' she asked, delving into her limited knowledge of one of the native languages.

  'Directly translated it means "the great she elephant" and, quite likely, the legendary chieftainess was considered by her tribe to be as strong and fearless as an elephant, but Indlovukazi actually means "queen".'

  'I'm relieved to hear that her size had nothing to do with her name.' Christie laughed at her own mental image of an enormous woman.

  'Indlovukazi was reported to be a rather small woman.' His smile was faintly mocking when he put the pot aside and reached for his cigarettes. 'As you say, her size had nothing to do with the name she had been given.'

  'Is it because of that unusual design that you suspect the legend of the tribal queen to be more than a legend?' she probed, her interest deepening.

  'That, and several snippets of information I have picked up over the years,' he confessed, lighting a cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling of the tent. 'There's an old black man, Aaron, whose family lived on this land for centuries, and he believes that Indlovukazi's headquarters were situated in that cave above our digging site.' His expression hardened as he leaned back in his chair. 'This is all pure conjecture, of course, but if there is some truth in this story, then you have something in your possession which might once have belonged to that tribal queen.'

  Christie felt a tremor of something close to shock racing through her, and her mind leapt around wildly before she recalled the small circular ivory disc which Lyle had given her shortly after their marriage. The design engraved around the outer edge of the flat disc had resembled intertwining branches, and in the centre had been the clear image of a man.

  'Are you referring to that ivory disc you once gave me?' she queried hesitantly, her face paling to some extent when she recalled how little interest she had shown in his gift.

  'That's correct,' came the abrupt reply. 'Aaron's great-grandfather had apparently found that disc in the cave, and it was eventually passed on to Aaron as the eldest son, along with the legend of Indlovukazi. The tribesmen of that time believed that their queen was someone god-like with powers beyond their imagination, and it was unheard of that such a woman should take a husband to suffer the emotions of ordinary mortals. They pampered her, doted on her and, when she had children, they firmly believed that she had obtained them through the process of her supernatural powers.'

  'Of course, it wasn't like that at all.'

  'Naturally not,' Lyle smiled cynically. 'Indlovukazi was human after all and, not wanting to act against her tribal customs, she took a lover and kept this knowledge hidden from her subjects. Indlovukazi and her lover are reputed to have been so besotted with each other that she commissioned a craftsman to make two small ivory discs, and they were to have been identically engraved except for the image in the centre. The one had to depict the image of a man, while the other had to depict that of a woman. Indlovukazi kept for herself the disc with the image of the man as a symbol of her lover and, as a symbol of herself, she gave her lover the disc with the image of a woman. They believed that, in this way, they would be together in spirit even when they had to be apart. Legend also has it that Indlovukazi had endowed these discs with certain powers so that they would be lovers for as long as those discs remained in their possession.'

  'Did they always remain lovers?' Christie questioned him, a breathless catch in her voice as she found herself caught up in the dramatic events Lyle was relating to her.

  'Unfortunately not,' Lyle spoke harshly, drawing hard on his cigarette and blowing the smoke in twin jets from his nostrils to lend a devilish appearance to his features. 'It was finally discovered that she had tricked her people, and her lover was put to death by the queen's infuriated followers.'

  'And Indlovukazi?' Christie was holding her breath for some reason, her body taut with an inexplicable tension as she waited for the finale and, when it came, Lyle's deep, harsh voice injected a coldness into her veins.

  'Stripped of the power she had wielded as the tribe's queen, and bereft of her lover, Indlovukazi committed suicide by stepping directly into the path of a rampant elephant.'

  The image of a heartbroken Indlovukazi being trampled to death seemed to burn its way into Christie's soul, and she shuddered. 'Oh, how dreadful!'

  'Perhaps not so dreadful if you believe that, in death, you will be free to join your lover.' Lyle's deep voice penetrated her disturbed thoughts.

  'Perhaps not,' she agreed reluctantly, and it was some minutes before she could pull herself together sufficiently to ask, 'Why did Aaron give you the ivory disc?'

  'Aaron doesn't have a son, and he knew that I was genuinely interested in the disc, as well as the legend attached to it.' Lyle's mouth twisted cynically. 'He also told me that it belonged with the woman I married.'

  The woman I married. It was an unfortunate choice of words. It should have been the woman I loved, but it made her realise something she had ignored until that moment. Not once before, or during, their marriage had Lyle said that he loved her, and she wondered now whether love had ever featured in what he had felt for her.

  'You never told me much about the disc when you gave it to me,' she accused, thrusting her painful thoughts into the recesses of her mind. 'You merely said that you believed it was one of a pair, and that you hoped one day to find the one which was missing.'

  'As I recall, you weren't very interested five years ago,' he accused in turn, and she winced inwardly.

  'That's not true, I—' She halted abruptly when a stab of guilt made her recall the occasion vividly. 'I admit that I was rather involved at that time,' she added lamely, lowering her eyes before the angry intensity of his glance.

  'Involved with Sammy Peterson, yes, and a recording session for a new album,' he underlined her statement savagely.

  'I'm sorry,' she heard herself apologising, her hands fluttering nervously before she laced her fingers together in her lap.

  'I didn't ask for an apology, I was stating a fact.'

  The desire to defend herself was an instinctive reaction, but she knew the futility of it a mere fraction of a second before the clanging of their improvised dinner gong interrupted their conversation.

  Christie wrenched her glance from his, and picked up the wet bundle at her feet before she got up. She walked out of Lyle's tent with her head held high, but she could feel his accusing eyes boring into her back and, when she stepped into her tent, she had to clamp down hastily on the ridiculous desire to burst into tears. Lyle had spoken the truth. She had shown little interest in his gift, and her involvement in her career was no longer sufficient excuse for her negligence. The ivory disc lay at the bottom of her jewellery box, forgotten and overlooked for more than five years. Only now did she discover its significance: it was a symbol of love, but on its own it meant nothing, just as she meant nothing to Lyle.

  CHAPTER FOUR

&n
bsp; During their second week, and under Lyle's expert guidance, the archaeological students uncovered several items of interest. One item in particular caused a stir of excitement among the group. It was a string of roughly hewn gold beads. It lay embedded in the hard crust of the earth as it must have fallen a thousand years ago, but the leather thong which had once held them together had disintegrated with age. Wax was melted and poured into a shallow pan as a temporary mould, and the solid gold beads, when they were removed from the soil, were lain in the hardening wax in the exact formation in which they had been found.

  Could it once have belonged to Indlovukazi? Christie's mind ran riot at the thought, and her growing interest in archaeology was like a flame leaping higher and higher inside her. Without Lyle's permission, or his approval, Christie involved herself physically with the excavations during the mornings, but her afternoons were spent taking down dictation and typing Lyle's notes while he discussed the day's findings with the students.

  Their second week in the camp had been spent in much the same way as the first. On the Saturday morning Lyle took the Jeep and drove in to Dialsdrif with one of the students to collect fresh provisions for the week ahead, but the rest of the weekend was spent washing their clothes in the river, or simply relaxing after a hectic week.

  On the Sunday morning an elderly black man strolled into the camp, and he spoke to Lyle for some time. It was after his departure that Christie discovered it had been Aaron, the man who had given Lyle the ivory disc which she had in her possession. Aaron had seen a snake near their camp, but it had disappeared into the bushes before he could kill it, and he had thought it best to warn them.

  It was a blistering day, but Christie shivered at the thought of a snake lurking in the vicinity. The men searched through every tent, but found nothing, and it was generally assumed that the snake would shy away from entering the camp. Snakes were, after all, not in the habit of seeking out humans. It was a consoling thought, and the subject was not mentioned again.