CHAPTER THREE

Luggage in hand, Lord and Lady Hayden stepped off the bus in front of a small hotel. It was early summer in South Africa, hot, steamy, and rainy. Fortunately, today, the weather was clear. The warm climate suited their safari outfits. Elizabeth’s red-gold hair was tucked under her hat, a wide veiled canvas affair. The trip had taken three days, due to stopovers in London and Egypt. They had promised the Dean to expect, upon their return from winter recess, a very special artifact and a joint thesis presenting an unprecedented revelation about certain African ruins; in addition, an article for submission to National Geographic who had already published several of Elizabeth’s works under her pseudonym of Grace Quinlan. The articles and their references to the College brought the learning institution added revenue from philanthropists, and interested students along with their tuition.

The hotel clerk, a thin, tall, dark-skinned man attired in a brown suit and tan shirt, greeted them pleasantly as they entered the hotel and introduced themselves, mentioning their reservation. He spoke with a slight accent, "Ah, yes, we have your room ready. Dr. Moore asked me to give you this note." He handed Lord Hayden a small envelope."

"He’s not here?" Elizabeth asked.

"No, he said he would be gone for a few days, but to make sure to give you his message."

Lord Hayden sliced through the envelope with his thumb, read it quickly and handed it to Elizabeth.

Meet me at the site of the Temple ruins as soon as you arrive.

The pair did not waste time. Their room was small with nothing more than a bed, a nightstand, and a chair. The share-bathroom was in the hallway. Lord Hayden and Elizabeth hoarded a few necessities into their duffel bags, tucked the rest of their luggage under the bed, and hurriedly left. They signed on and boarded a sightseeing vehicle that stopped at several sites, among them the Acropolis and the Valley of Ruins, and finally the Temple with its thirty-foot high over-walled enclosure and the Conical Tower, where Dr. Moore was supposedly camped.

The bus moved slowly, the ride bumpy, but the savannah landscape, the hills, and blue mountains absorbed the passengers’ interest and brought back descriptions by Rudyard Kipling: opal and ash of roses, cinnamon, umber and dun. Elizabeth loved poetry, and recited to Lord Hayden, Kipling's verses that she had memorized about this country. "Zebras wantonly tossing their manes, and their wild hoofs scouring the plain. Fawns’ plaintive sounds, karroo’s bleating cries. Fleet-footed ostriches, the burning sky, and the elephant’s shrill reveille. The baboons’ jabbering cries, the wind sobbing, the snake and the lizard, and the poisonous thorns that pierce the foot. And the daisies." Lord Hayden could not resist kissing her despite their proximity to the other passengers, mainly tourists.

On its way the bus stopped at a Hottentot village sheltering a herd of cattle and sheep. The guide, a dark-skinned man with a good command of English and French, led the passengers into the village, explaining as they walked that livestock were prized as a form of wealth more than as a source of food. He, himself, originally hailed from this village. "We love to fill our eyes with cattle," he explained enthusiastically. "Legal marriage is contracted by the transfer of cattle from the bridegroom’s family to that of the bride’s. Wealth and social status are determined by the possession of cattle. With all due respect to the ladies," he added apologetically, "women do not tend the cattle. That is the men’s prerogative. Except for the milking, women are considered a menace to the cattle."

Despite his apology, he seemed to enjoy telling this to the tourists. Elizabeth sneered under her breath, "Men!"

The guide continued to explain that among his people, cattle were a means of staying in good terms with the ancestral spirits, by making ritual killings of cattle at the proper times, during sickness, for instance.

Still Smarting from the guide’s sexist remarks, Elizabeth found some consolation in listening to a one hundred year old woman who sat on a wood chair of similar age. Children squatted before her thin spindly knees and listened amazed as she regaled them with tales, some funny, some sad, of daily village life told to her by her own great-grandparents. Shortly after, the villagers served the passengers a repast of three of their staple foods, white yams, rice, and goat’s milk that did not taste as bad as Elizabeth expected.

By late afternoon, the bus party had toured the Acropolis and the Valley of Ruins, and disembarked in front of the Temple. An irregularly elliptical enclosure of over eight hundred feet, it masked a web of inner walls that originally divided the temple into several distinct enclosures. Each concentric circle had held its own group of mud huts. Of the interior wall, only some of the bases and crumbling walls remained, a labyrinth of passages and dead ends. Yet once, this Temple had housed a powerful medieval black race.

Though at first impression, a fortress came to mind, over the years, archaeologists deduced that the square-stoned walls, without openings or a means of being scaled, probably were home to an emperor, his harem, his banquets and courts, all well hidden from public view. Elizabeth understood how an Emperor during the heyday of this structure would find this location an appropriate abode. Southeasterly winds from the Indian Ocean kept the valley’s hills verdant. On the horizon, serrated by numerous granite outcrops, kopjes (small hills) appeared from a distance to rise like relics of castles long deserted.

The walls of the temple were a marvel in themselves. Gray-granite blocks, some in their natural state, others dressed, were all set together without mortar, save for the daga, a mixture of gravel and clay that formed the walls’ rounded caps.

Overwhelmed by the influx of information the ruins suggested, Elizabeth chided herself that she must not let her imagination run away with her. Facts and proof must be considered above all speculations. The part of her that loved to imagine must be controlled by logic and visual proof. With all her heart she delighted in discussing everything she had seen on the tour with Lord Hayden, and he, equally enthused, treasured their conversations.

True to his message, if late, Dr. Moore, a slim Caucasian man of Lord Hayden’s height, late twenties, light brown hair, and dressed similarly in a Khaki outfit, showed just as the bus was reloading for its return trip. Elizabeth recognized him immediately and held out her hand to shake his. "Dr. Moore," she greeted. The man’s intense brown gaze shifted from one to the other. Lord Hayden felt an instant, as yet inexplicable, wariness of the approaching stranger.

Dr. Moore accepted Elizabeth’s handshake. Noting the lack of recognition in Lord Hayden’s eyes, he inquired, "You don’t remember me?"

Lord Hayden shook his head. "Not in the least."

"Not surprising," Moore replied. In my time at Layton I made very little or no impression on most." He shrugged as though dismissing a trivial memory. "I’m camped just behind the ruins. Come, join me for supper. There’s no need to return to the hotel tonight. I’ve prepared a tent for you both."