'How do you think it got here?' I said.
'Anybody's guess,' he said. 'It certainly wasn't made here. Shipped from Greece to Asia Minor, I should say. Then, some time later, here. You can see how the land has subsided very considerably all over this part of the hills. Quite possibly the earlier house was destroyed in that way. Who can say? We're talking about two thousand years. He has been here, in the hillside, for two thousand years.'
Upon this, I stood back again to look at him. He was free now to the waist. Below this he was exposed in low relief, still backed against the clay. He was a very young man – shapely and strong, but slender – not quite yet at the full growth of manhood. Though discoloured with tarnish and engrained with clay, nothing of him that we could see was broken or incomplete. The features, fingers, genitals, all were perfect. One arm, the one turned to us, was held somewhat away from the side, bent at the elbow, the forearm extended forward of the body at an angle slightly below the horizontal. The hand was open, fingers spaced a little. The other arm was at his side. He appeared to be taking a short step forward, the right leg being a matter of nine or ten inches in advance of the left, though both feet rested flat on the same level, thus throwing the weight of the body slightly back, contradicting the apparent intention of forward motion. This tension in the form gave an appearance of hesitation to the pose, reinforced by the blind face, the smiling curve of the caked lips.
'He's marvellous, isn't he?' Mister Bowles said. There was a shy ardour in his tone. He might have been showing me a photograph of some loved person.
'He is, yes,' I said, and my assent was unforced, Excellency. It was now very hot in the hollow. 'I think I'll go and find a bit of shade,' I said. 'Rest for a while, if you don't mind.'
Mister Bowles pursed his lips, as if dubious. Then he said, indifferently, 'All right, if you like.' He did not really want me wandering around. 'Time is short, you know,' he said. 'I was hoping you would help me clean him up a bit later on.'
'Of course,' I said. His reluctance was encouraging, in a way. I had other reasons – other than tiredness, I mean – for wanting to break off for a while. I wanted to have another look at the terrain. A certain idea had been burgeoning in my mind all morning. Of course, I had been suspicious of him ever since I had seen him with Mister Smith that day, in the bar – is it two days ago or three? I lose count of time, Excellency. I had thought it possible he might want to buy a passage off the island on Mister Smith's caique. Perhaps he wanted to forestall the consequences of Mahmoud's fury when it was found that the site contained nothing valuable. Perhaps he was arranging to decamp in a hurry, so as to cheat me of my share of the money. However, finding him with the statue had made me think again. It had explained why he delayed, why he jeopardised everything: he was the prey of his obsession, I had thought, this terrible truth he had found through lies. In all this I had forgotten the more calculating aspects of Mister Bowles's nature, forgotten, too, his sense of being specially appointed. He has been 'led to' the statue, as he believes. Does he really intend to give it up for the sake of his name on a plaque? Now I remembered – what I should not have forgotten – that it is not a question only of Mister Bowles and Mister Smith. There are three others on that boat – five men altogether. Five men can do much, Excellency, if paid enough or frightened enough.
I climbed out of the hollow on the same side as I had first approached it, the side from which I had approached it today. From this side it would clearly be out of the question. I knew that in advance. The mounded, hummocky ground beyond, with its tangles of masonry and vegetation, its ruined walls, its steep clefts and gullies – clearly impossible from this side. The statue must weigh three hundred and fifty pounds at least, I had calculated. Quite possibly more. But from the other side of the hollow, the side I had not seen…?
I went back towards the ruins until I reckoned I was at a safe distance from him, then began to make my way round in a fairly wide semi-circle, with the intention of coming out at a roughly similar level at the other side. This I found extremely difficult, at times even hazardous – particularly for one so unathletic as myself, Excellency. But I persevered. Sometimes on hands and knees, sometimes slithering feet first, torn by scrub and bruised by stone, I made my way round. I was uneasily conscious that parts of my route might have been visible from above, from where the two soldiers were stationed, but though I may have been seen I was not challenged. When I did reach the other side of the hollow, what I saw soothed my pains to a large extent. It was possible, Excellency. For a group of determined men it was feasible, though difficult. There would be five of them, if all the crew were employed on it. Excellency, supposing I am right about Mister Smith. Supposing he is here on some illegal enterprise-let us say landing guns for the rebels. And supposing something has gone wrong. Perhaps being searched has scared him. Perhaps there has been some breakdown in the arrangements. In this situation he will be wanting to get away, he will be interested in the idea of some quick money. Not threats, as I once thought – men like that would be too dangerous to threaten. But money, yes. And Lydia has money…
I had come round from the side, through rock and thick scrub into a more open area, not precisely behind the hollow where Mister Bowles was working, but giving me a view of the slope down from this, and then the longer, more gradual slope of the hillside itself. It was true that there were sizeable rocks amid the pine trees, especially on the first and steeper part of the slope, and there were folds in the ground that might be awkward. But no more than a hundred yards beyond, quite clearly visible, was the line of the stream bed – dry now and wide enough for two men abreast. Admittedly, the footing would be difficult, because of the irregular stones forming the bed, but these would not be large, and the slope was fairly gradual. I could not see its course for very far, but I remembered, as I crouched there, the view I had had from the path higher up, on my way here that first day when I had come to spy on him: the long green swathe of the stream bed with its edging vegetation, the sea, the continuing line of the jetty, the greening of the water over the marble blocks. It was possible, Excellency, it was the only possibility, and therefore it must be the answer. They could never get him out of the hollow unaided, of course -a dozen men could not have done it, the slope was too steep, the clay too crumbling. But with lifting gear from the caique… They might have a spare block and tackle. Or they could use the tackle from the boom. It was level enough along the top for three men at least to stand together…
There were the soldiers, of course, to reckon with. The two above would see nothing of it, their view was cut off by the fall of the land. But the two below, nearer the shore, they were on the same side of the headland as the stream bed. Besides, there was the noise… Mister Bowles had not seemed particularly worried about the presence of the soldiers, once they had been removed from the site itself.
I judged I had been away no more than half an hour. But I do not think, after that scramble, that I could have looked like a man who had been resting in the shade, and I thought that his manner was suspicious when he greeted me on my return. I say that I thought so, Excellency – it was impossible now with him to be certain of such things. His wild and gleaming appearance made normal identifications impossible. His whole manner, since the finding of the statue and the subsequent secretive labours, had become so charged with feeling, so almost melodramatic, that there was no register for milder feelings.