The Seventh Scroll Read Free Page B

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 waistdeep 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 breaststroke, 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 Yusuf, so that he shouted aloud, "Djinns! God protect meV as the flock of roosting duck exploded from the water and launched into the dark sky