“She’s gone,” he said. “One of the women must have let her out.”

Jim started for the door-and ran smack into a chair. As he stood swaying I snatched the flashlight from him and turned it on his face. He closed his eyes and put his hand up, but not quite soon enough.

“Your eyes,” I said, horrified. “What happened?”

“The fumes, I suppose,” he said fretfully. “Let go, Sandy. I’ve got to find Chris.”

“You can’t even see! Are you crazy? What’s to prevent them from picking you as their star performer instead of Chris? You fit the part better. You’ll blunder right into them.”

“Unlikely,” said Frederick. “If the performance takes the form I anticipate, it will resemble the bacchic orgies, with some form of circling dance. There will be considerable noise.”

He got up from his chair and went to the window. Jim was making feeble attempts to free himself from my grasp. I hung on with both hands.

“The air seems to be clearing,” Frederick said. “However, our young hero is in no condition to go out. I see I shall have to assume the role, ill as it suits me.”

“You!” I exclaimed.

“Don’t misunderstand,” said Frederick. “I am immensely curious. The chance of seeing such a survival may never come again. Kore’s contributions cannot be denied, but she must have worked with a residuum of folk memory handed down in these islands for millennia. Fascinating.”

In that instant, on that last word, my feelings for him died. Oh, I had felt them, much as I wanted to deny them; I had hoped he might have some tenderness buried under his cold, formal manner. I had deluded myself.

“Go ahead,” I said. My voice was as flat as my emotions. “Go on, watch the women dancing and cheering and tearing their victim limb from limb.I hope you will take notes. You may find it a little difficult to write left-handed, but if I know you, you’ll manage.”

“I will.” He put out a hand as Jim surged toward him and shoved him back. “Keep that young fool here. Naturally I will interfere if matters go as far as he suggests, which I don’t expect for a moment. The victim will be a goat or a sheep. I shall return in good time.”

Jim had fallen into a chair and was struggling to get up. I sat on his lap to hold him down, and tried to calm him.

“Just let me bathe your eyes and fix you up a little. I promise you can go. Later. After you feel better.”

As I spoke, Frederick left. I heard the front door close.

Keller helped me work on Jim. We found a lantern that shed more light than the flashlight we had been using. The eyedrops seemed to help.

When Keller had finished, he rolled his shirt sleeves down and buttoned them neatly.

“I too must go,” he said. “I must find Kore.”

“She’s in no danger,” Jim muttered. “ Sandy is the one I’m worried about.”

“Me?” I said, pretending surprise. This was not the time to tell him what I knew about Kore’s religious doctrines, especially the ones that concerned me personally. But I underestimated his intelligence.

“Why do you suppose I keep coming back here instead of looking for Chris?” Jim demanded. “I have a pretty good idea what Kore is up to. When I realized that the women were gone from the village, I started putting the rest of it together. Kore’s talk about reincarnation and her references to a female deity-whom we naïvely identified as the Virgin Mary-your dreams, the hints the priest threw out… Keller, for God’s sake-youought to know what’s going on in that woman’s mind, if anyone does. What will she do?”

“She never spoke to me of that,” Keller said. “It was her private affair.”

“It’s not private now,” Jim said.

“But I tell you, she will harm no one.” Keller was standing just beyond the light; it left his face in shadow, but shone on his hands. They were tight, white-knuckled fists. “You young fools, frantic about imaginary dangers… There is danger walking abroad tonight, but it will not be from my poor Kore. It will be for her. And for others.”

Jim took the wet cloths off his eyes and sat up.

“I think you had better tell me,” he said.

Keller slumped into a chair as if his legs would no longer support him.

“Yes, I must tell you. For thirty years I have kept this burden on my soul. I can bear the weight no longer.”

Jim glanced questioningly at me. Was Keller about to go through the same old story again?

“I know about your guilt feelings,” Jim said. “But you’re mistaken if you think anyone harbors a grudge about that. A murderous grudge, anyway. The idea of revenge-”

“Revenge!” Keller’s voice cracked with emotion. “I do not speak of a motive so juvenile! I speak of treachery and fear! How do you think your uncle fell into our hands? It was not by accident, or by our cleverness. He was betrayed, I tell you-given over to us by a man he trusted like a brother, in exchange for immunity. Would such a man hesitate to kill now, in order to keep the secret of his shame?”

Chapter 14

I

“SO THAT’SIT,” JIM SAID. “I WONDERED… WHO ELSE knows this?”

“Myself. Kore.” Keller laughed shrilly. “The traitor. Judas, Cain… What I did was badenough. But he-”

“All right, keep calm,” Jim said quickly. “All these years you remained silent. Why?”

“Why should I speak?” Keller’s face was shining with sweat. “At the beginning silence was part of the price I paid for his services. It was war. One does many distasteful things to serve one’s country. Then, after it was over-to whom should I speak? Was it part of my duty to betray this man, as he had betrayed his comrade in arms? Whom could I serve by doing this?”

Jim’s voice cut through the high-pitched monologue.

“And besides, he might have a few secrets to tell about you. I’m sure you did other things, ‘in the course of your duty’ that might have embarrassed you. No”-as Keller made a wild gesture of protest-“never mind, forget it. Let the past die!”

“It won’t die,” I said, breaking the silence shock and horror had induced. “Keller said it this afternoon: the labyrinthine prison of time… Jim, why don’t you ask the important question? What are you afraid of?”

“A mutual pact of silence,” Jim said, gesturing me to be quiet. “And you came here-my God, you came here to protect his find from the man who betrayed him. Was that it?”

Keller nodded eagerly.

“That at least I could do.”

He looked hopefully at Jim, as if expecting approbation. The man was mad, all right, but only part of the time. There was a single flaw in his thinking, and even that had its own bizarre consistency.

“I understand,” Jim said. “So, this year, when it appeared that the secret was known, you tried to stop the work. The avalanche, that day you saw us on the hill, was no accident. You wanted to put Sandy out of action. She was the diver, the one who was looking for the ships. You planted the amphora, with its booby trap, hoping she would be-”

“No!” Keller’s eyes widened. “What do you take me for, that I would harm a young girl? Was I not the one who saved her? She might have died, in the water, if I had not-”

“You didn’t plan to kill her,” Jim interrupted. “Only to immobilize her. I’ll give you that much credit. The mere fact that you were there in time to bring her in is suspicious. How could you have been on the spot unless you expected an accident?”

“Stop it,” I said, as Keller began to protest. “All this is beside the point. We sit here talking, while… You don’t have to protect me, Jim. Iknow who the traitor was. It must have been Frederick.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Jim said in a strained voice.

“It was your boss or mine,” I said. “Take your pick. Who has the kind of ruthless self-interest for such a filthy action? Why did he volunteer to go out just now? It wasn’t altruism, you can be sure. He’s never done anything that didn’t serve his own interests. What’s he doing out there? Who is he after?”