They were so engrossed they didn't realize I was standing there, watching them. "It's a pity we don't know the exact level from which it came," Cartwright said.
Holroyd laid the piece of stone carefully down with several others on the edge of the pit. They were all sharp slivers of a very dark colour, almost black. "The levels are probably disturbed anyway. We'll know more when we start to dig at the back. But it definitely has possibilities." His tone was eager. "Look at this arrow-head." He had picked up one of the smaller slivers. "Obsidian. And very advanced work-typical late palaeolithic." He held it in his hands, peering at it, fondling it almost, "Beautiful! Beautiful work."
Vassilios moved, dislodging a stone, and Holroyd looked up, saw me and scrambled to his feet. "How did you get here?"
"Boat," I said.
He nodded, waiting, Cartwright and Hans Winters, still on their hands and knees, staring up at me. "Has Dr. Van der Voort given you permission to examine his dig?" I asked him.
He stepped out of the pit and stood facing me. "To begin with, young man, I don't need his permission. I have authority from the General Direction of Antiquities to examine any cave-shelter in Greece." He reached into his pocket and got out his pipe, a conscious effort to control himself. "When did you arrive?"
"A few hours ago."
"And you came straight here?"
I nodded.
"Then you haven't seen him yet?"
"No."
"I saw him yesterday. He's in a cottage at Vatahori and I suggest you go and see him before you start asking me whether I have a right to examine this cave-shelter."
"You mean he gave you permission?"
"He's in no fit state to lead an expedition and he knows it. Yes, he agreed that I take over."
"I find it very difficult to believe that."
His little eyes narrowed. "He had no alternative."
"And if this dig is important, who gets the credit?" I asked.
But he wouldn't give me a straight answer to that. "If we did discover something important-" He was filling his pipe, frowning, his movements almost unconscious. "Dr. Van der Voort couldn't put it across." His head thrust forward, suddenly belligerent. "If you'd ever interested yourself in your father's affairs you'd know that. They wouldn't accept it from him. Nobody would."
"But they will from you?"
"Yes, they will from me." He lit his pipe, taking his time and looking at me over the flame. "Anything else?" He tossed the match clear of the pit, waiting. And then he said, "Well, there it is. Nothing for you to worry about-except perhaps your own affairs." This last was said very pointedly, and then he turned back to the dig, leaving me to wonder whether he had seen that piece in the paper. Or perhaps Kotiadis had been checking up on me.
I wandered around for a moment, looking for the place where the old man had sat, crouching with that stone lamp in his hand. But the pictures Cassellis had taken showed open water. There was no vista of blue sea here, only the dark enclosed gut of the Meganisi Channel. This was a different site, and I went back to the boat, strangely disturbed by the knowledge that there was still another place Holroyd didn't know about.
That afternoon I went with Sonia to Vatahori. We didn't talk much, both of us wrapped in our own thoughts. It was about a two-mile walk from Port Vathy and it did us good, for it was a bright day with just enough breeze to keep us cool, and the island was very beautiful, full of wild flowers and a great sense of peace pervading.
"They say certain animals have a sense of beauty-places they constantly return to." Sonia had stopped and was staring out across a green slope with olive trees and a glimpse of the sea beyond. "Do you think our early ancestors appreciated beauty? This is so lovely." Her voice was subdued as though the sheer perfection of land, sea and sky was a physical ache. "I thought that olive grove was beautiful. But this. ."
We stood for a moment, the sun warm on our backs. It was all so peaceful, only the murmur of the cicadas, the bleat of goats far off. I was very conscious of her then, the desire to touch her almost overwhelming, and the grass of the slope, the shade of the olives inviting. She turned abruptly and we went on, following the road until it turned the shoulder of the hill to give a view of Vatahori. The church and the school looked new, but beyond the cemetery and a dusty open space where the road ended, the old village sprawled over a hilltop like a dark stone rampart. The cottages were small and very old, the passages between no more than tracks of rubble or naked rock. Pappadimas owned one of the few two-storied modern houses, a little way out of the village on the stone track leading down to Port Atheni. His wife, with two brown-eyed children clinging to her skirt, took us round to the back where the old man sat at a table writing with a glass of dark red wine beside him and the half-glasses he used for reading perched on the high beak of his nose. He did not hear us come, sitting hunched forward, totally absorbed, a dark, brooding look on his face.
"Dr. Van der Voort!" Sonia ran forward, eager as a child, and as he saw her the brooding look was wiped away, his face lit up and there was a softness in his eyes I had never seen before. She kissed him, and when she straightened up, I saw that he was smiling. It was a quiet, gentle smile that transformed his whole expression so that suddenly he looked like the man I remembered.
Mrs. Pappadimas brought two more glasses and a lemonade bottle full of wine. "Krasi," she said proudly. "Kala."
"Efharisto." He was still smiling as he thanked her. "It will probably send you to sleep," he said, filling our glasses. "They make it themselves."
We were with him for about an hour, and most of that time he seemed imusually relaxed. No doubt this was partly due to Sonia's presence. His fondness for her was obvious. Also, he seemed to have come to terms with himself as though he no longer cared what happened. Yes, he had seen Holroyd. They had had a talk the previous evening. "Of course, I don't want him to take over. But I can't stop him." He seemed resigned. "I'm tired, and anyway, I've other work to do. A lot of writing."
I didn't understand it, all the fight gone out of him. Even when I told him about my visit to the cave-shelter, how Holroyd was already finding worked pieces of obsidian, it didn't seem to worry him. "Did he comment at all?" And when I said they had agreed it was Solutrean, he nodded, smiling, as though he were actually pleased that they had got it right.
"There was an arrow-head," I said, "which Holroyd regarded as particularly beautiful work."
"Was he able to date it?"
"He said it was very advanced work-late palaeolithic."
"He didn't use the word Cro-Magnon?"
"No."
"Ah well, perhaps when they start to dig. . They hadn't started, had they?"
"No. They'd only just arrived. They found it in some loose soil that had fallen from the side of the pit."
"But they're going to dig?"
"Yes, at the back where Holroyd thought the layers would be undisturbed."
"You should be there," Sonia said.
But he shook his head.
"Just occasionally," she said coaxingly. "If you don't. Professor Holroyd will make use of it the way he made use of your book."
"No," he said. "It's much better that the discovery should be announced by him. He can refer to it in the paper he's
reading to the Pan-European Prehistoric Congress next month. They'll take it from him, whereas if it came from me …" Holroyd's words almost, and the note of resignation back in his voice. I had a sudden uneasy feeling that this was an act put on for our benefit. To hide his bitterness perhaps. And then Sonia mentioned that we had Dr. Gilmore on board and he froze, a tense stillness as though the news came as a shock, instead of a pleasant surprise. "You remember Dr. Gil-more," she said. "You often spoke of him."