"If - as you claim - you are an anthropology graduate from the University of Southern California," the priest said in his well-modulated voice, "I cannot understand why you and your assistant should have chosen to come all the way here to this very modest, uninspiring tenda when there are so many others more interesting else where." He sat at a simple desk. Through the uncurtained window behind him, they could see groups of men in the now familiar khaki and black uniforms moving in among the trees.
"But that's just it," Illya said. "All the way here. Since Candomblé is centered on Bahia state and the areas to the north and east of it, we find it intensely interesting, demographically, to find a tenda as far west as this. We had no idea the Yoruba had ever been transported this far."
"They probably migrated after abolition. And in any case the boundary between former slave peoples and the Indian aboriginals is hopelessly blurred now," Hernando said. He flicked a speck of dust from his pale gray suit and drummed his fingers on the top of the desk.
"As the priest in charge of this place," Coralie asked suddenly, "can you explain why the spirits should frown on the local people talking about this dam? We wondered how the forced moves had affected them, sociologically, but we couldn't get a soul to talk about it at all. They say the gods forbid."
"I am only Pai Hernando, the horse on which the spirits ride," the Negro said. "It is not for me to question the wisdom of the Orixás, the great ones. Indeed, I had no idea such messages had been transmitted through me. And now," he added pointedly, "if you could tell me how I can help you…"
"We should very much like to see some ceremonies - perhaps an ôrunkó - to compare with those performed in the Candomblés further east."
"I am afraid that is quite impossible. This is a simple country place. No such rituals take place here."
"But I thought…"
"Definitely not, sir. Apart from which, the local folk are - as you have seen - superstitious and suspicious. They would resent any outside participation, any hint of an audience, at their devotions."
Illya rose from his chair and paced up and down. "But surely," he cried agitatedly, running his hand through his pale hair, "there must be something in a cult which can impose so strong a taboo on the discussion -"
"I regret extremely," Pai Hernando said, rising to his feet also, "that I cannot help you at all. It is a pity that you should have traveled so far and so fruitlessly. Had you inquired first…"
"Are those soldiers out there?" Coralie asked innocently as he showed them to the door.
"Certainly not," the Negro said. "They are members of the construction company's security guard. There is valuable property in here."
"Your tenda is financed by the company, then?"
"By no means. They have been very generous, allowing us to operate on their land, granting us certain facilities."
"That aspect of paternalism in a foreign concern is interesting," Illya said. "Perhaps we could ask you a new -"
"Good day to you," Pai Hernando said firmly. He closed the door.
"Well, I've heard of visitors being discouraged," Coralie exclaimed as they walked out of the gates, "but this is ridiculous. Did you see those - security guards, did he say? I'm sure they'd have fired on us if we had turned right instead of left when we left that hut!"
"They probably would," the agent said soberly. "Obviously the entire Candomblé thing is a cheap device to blackmail the locals into silence about the whole project. The thing's a fake from beginning to end,"
"Why are you so sure?"
"Several reasons. In the first place Pai Hernando, Father Hernando, is a form of address used in Umbanda associations, not in Candomblé. If there is a priest at a Candomblé tenda - and it's usually a priestess, as it happens - he would be called a Babalorixá, a Father-of Saint. Caboclo, the term for an Indian guide, is from the Umbanda vocabulary too... Second, to say they hold no ceremonies such as an ôrunkó is absurd: the ôrunkó is the be-all and end-all of Candomblé - the ceremony at which the initiates are 'visited' by their particular deities. And finally, if it was a genuine tenda it would have been surrounded by miniature huts - the dwelling places for particular gods, which have to be sited at particular spots. Did you see any shrines, any offerings, any despachos there?"
"No," the girl said. "I didn't see those twelve trucks anywhere either. Did you?"
The Russian smiled. "There were no trucks to be seen," he said. "But when I started my pacing-up-and- down routine, I was able to catch sight of a space behind those trees at the bottom of the slope. There's a cliff which comes right down to ground level there - a fault or something in the rock, so that there's no gradual slope there. But there is something else; I could see it quite clearly. The drive runs right up to the cliff - an then straight into it."
"Do you mean there's a tunnel?" Coralie gasped.
"A tunnel leading into the mountain, or through it. With a double row of lights in the roof and a concrete blockhouse at the entrance. So the mystery of the appearing convoys is a mystery no more. They go on and through - and as soon as we have an opportunity to take them by surprise, that's what we have to do too."
"Yes, I see," the girl said thoughtfully. "That's what the guard meant, of course. 'Either you go through the mountain or you stay in the estancia' - that's what he said, isn't it?"
Kuiyakin nodded. "They seem especially determine that nobody shall so much as glimpse the surface of this marvelous lake," he mused. "It seems to me, therefore, that before we try the tunnel I really ought to have a look for myself..."
---
There was a moist breeze laden with hints of thyme, rosemary and wet earth as Illya Kuryakin stood on the broad shelf of concrete lipping the dam later that evening. In the darkness to one side, he could hear the rustling of dry grasses where the barrage met the hill side. Behind him, the wind which plucked at his shirt and trouser legs stirred the water into small waves which slapped at the dam. And in front the blackness trembled as the outlets from the invisible sluices roared down the sloping face of the barrage in their gigantic pipes.
He was surprised to find that there appeared to be no patrolling guards on the wall of the dam itself. It had taken him three hours to work his way through whole squadrons of them deployed between the boundary fence and the shore of the lake. The hillside slopes, the ridge, the steep faces dropping to the surface of the water on the far side - all of these were stiff with armed men on the lookout. Yet here, where one might expect the concentration to be strongest, there was nobody. Nor could he hear any evidence of activity around their power station far below. It followed, therefore, that the guardians of the mysterious lake were more concerned to keep people away from the reservoir itself than from the dam forming it.
With a puzzled frown, the agent lowered himself from the lip to a small observation platform, swung from the guard rail of this to a buttress, slid down fifteen feet of rough concrete in the dark, and finally found with his feet the curved surface of the huge-bore pipe down which he intended to work his way to the power station hundreds of feet below.