generation had received no formal education, and having no need of any lingua franca, habitually and invariably conversed in Balinese.
“But did you understand anything that he said?” I was mildly exasperated. “Please try and give me some idea.”
The boy shuffled uncomfortably, and without looking at me said “He say he find your—what you call?—tjorong in the place where—where you not can go. He say please you not go again there. That all.”
“Please will you tell him I am very sorry. I did not mean to go somewhere I should not go. But why should I not go there? What is wrong?”
He translated my words into the fluent tones of the high Balinese tongue. I had been around long enough to become familiar with the style if not the meaning; and it seemed to me that he spoke with an unnatural degree of deference. The man simply nodded as if to signify his understanding, but made no further reply. Then fixing us both with a penetrating eye, he muttered a customary civility, before inclining forward his hooded head in the slightest semblance of a bow; whereupon he resumed his stoop and appeared to shrink in a twinkling to his former size; and making no further sign or sound, he stumped through the gate and down the steps, and disappeared into the night.
To say I was flummoxed by this interview would be little less than accurate. Even allowing that we might have conversed in a common tongue, there had been no exchange of information or opinion, nor yet of simple courtesy; no quarter given or received. One fact alone had plainly emerged, that, for reasons which were at best abstruse and would at worst remain obscure, our presence in that dark and unfrequented corner was considered an intrusion. But why? And by whom? My curiosity was by now aroused to a feverish intensity, and would not be suppressed.
During my brief confrontation with the unbidden visitor, I had detected no note of hostility or perceived affront: only a resolute stance not to invite discussion or reveal the least clue as to his origin or motive. Yet why bother to retrieve my binoculars at all, let alone restore them to their rightful owner, thereby declaring the existence of one’s hand if not its contents? Furthermore, the exercise of tracking me down indicated the likelihood of our having been under constant surveillance from the moment we set foot in the cave. It was this latter reflection that really shook me and came to occupy my wakeful thoughts as well as dreams in the days that followed.
“But did the old man not say where he had come from?” I questioned the servant as we remounted the steps.
“No, he not say nothing. I never see him before.”
So that was that. The mystery compounded, and no inkling of a solution within grasp, my desire to return to the cave and burial chamber, in the face of all obstacles and objections, and regardless of the consequences, now knew no bounds and would not be denied. I became suddenly aware that I was still holding the vital piece of evidence that pointed to the existence of some unknown and inaccessible sphere, looming on the horizon as a separate continuum. I took my glasses from their case. To my amazement they were bone-dry. Then I remembered having stuffed them in my pocket at the moment it started to rain. They must have slipped out subsequently in the cavern, most probably on my being overtaken and spun about by the flash flood. So had the water receded soon after, leaving the glasses high and dry—well, figuratively speaking? Having been immersed, they could not have dried out so quickly.
With such imponderables racing through my mind, I found myself back at the table. Thanking the waiter for his valuable services as escort and interpreter, and bestowing on him a small reward, I resumed my seat. Hermione and Hector regarded me quizzically.
“Well,” said Hermione, “what’s new? Don’t tell us you’ve discovered an unknown species out there, while we’ve been bored to death, listening to Fats Waller and drinking champagne!”
“In point of fact, you’re not so far off the mark,” I replied. “While Fats and fizz may not be an acceptable substitute for the satisfaction of scientific discovery, I see I’ve managed to return in the nick of time to save you from a certain fate, since there’s still a drop left in the bottle!”
“Perhaps I was thinking more in terms of a suicide pact, my dear,” Hermione beamed at me. We all laughed, though it did not seem so terribly funny.
“Right!” said Hector: “my shout. Let’s do ourselves in once and for all, and let’s do it properly! Pol Roger, wasn’t it?”
“Should do the trick,” I concurred. And then I told them about my meeting with the gaffer from the back of beyond, not that there was a great deal of substance to relate, other than the bare details of his dress and demeanour, and the fact that he spoke in an ancient tongue.
“So he was altogether decidedly fay,” broke in Hermione. “I remember your words when we were swimming in the river. You said something about leading us to the realm of Faerie.” She paused for an instant, regarding me intently, a doubtful smile flickering at the edge of her eyes. “Without knowing it, perhaps you did!”
It was odd. Damned odd! There was no denying it. There was no plausible explanation for my utterance, and I could assign no name to whatever it was that had provoked it. At the time it had seemed a perfectly innocent, if somewhat peculiar remark. I supposed that, having literary pretensions, I did tend to speak a wee bit fay on occasion myself. That was all there was to it.
We drank more champagne, and I think we all three became rather garrulous and chortled excessively as the evening wore on. And when we had finished stuffing ourselves at the table, there was no lack of consensus on the proposal that we should adjourn for a nightcap to the tavern above. One for the road inevitably developed into two or four and even more, and I do not imagine that we met with any great difficulty in prevailing upon Hector to occupy the piano stool once more and entertain us with a lively selection of rags and stomps. Beggars’ Bush Bumps entered for ever and aye into the master’s repertoire that night.
Chapter V
The Temple on the Cliff
WHEN I AWOKE the sun was already high in the heavens, and there was no denying that I felt a bit grim. The realization that today was the last day of my vacation, and that my presence was expected in the nether regions, brought no consolation. I had barely enough time in which to prepare for my departure and organize transport to the coast, let alone become involved in such diversions as observing birds or penetrating caves and a labyrinth of flooded subterranean passages.
I wondered whether Hector and Hermione had decided to go off on their own. The awful truth was that I had no recollection of any discussion we might have had following dinner at the Beggars’ Bush, and I retained but the vaguest memory of making my fond adieux later outside the premises, and of holding Hermione ever so briefly in my arms while bitterly reflecting that our time together had been so short, and that there could be no guarantee of our meeting again within the foreseeable future.
It was with a heavy heart that I set off in my hired motor-car soon after midday, my thoughts occupied with the divine Hermione and her flashing smile and the part she had played in our adventure together. All the same, I felt reasonably certain that I should see her again, and we had exchanged addresses, promising to get in touch with one another on her return to England. But that might not be for many months hence, since she planned to accompany Hector on his travels through the Indonesian Archipelago, before arriving in Australia where they intended to visit relatives who were farming in Victoria.
The sun-drenched countryside swept by, terraced fields in every stage of growth, some fallow or flooded awaiting the new planting, others ripe for the reaper’s sickle; bound on all sides by lush green curtains of vegetation, where nestled the dwellings of the inhabitants
