Ben felt a coolness down his back, and he took Halima by the hand. 'We'll be all right,' he told her with a confidence he did not fully feel. 'We've been OK so far, haven't we?'

Halima smiled weakly, and it was obvious she was putting a brave face on her worries. They stood hand in hand in silence for a moment, each trying to derive some comfort from the presence of the other.

Suddenly there was a scream.

It was the scream of a man, and it was not far away.

Ben and Halima crouched down by the nearest tree. 'What was that?' Halima whispered, her voice wavering.

Ben was lost in thought. The gunshot earlier, now a scream. This was not a populated area – it could only be one of Suliman's men, and from what they had heard, it meant that they must be incredibly close. Every instinct howled at him to stay still, hidden; but perhaps there was another way. Perhaps that scream meant that one of them at least had met some misfortune. If that was the case, they might be able to take one of the Kalashnikovs. He understood what Halima had meant about respecting the jungle, but he would feel a lot safer with a gun in his fist. 'Wait here,' he whispered to Halima. 'I'm going to go and see what it was.'

'I don't want to stay by myself,' Halima breathed. 'I'm coming with you.'

As silently as they could, they set off in what they thought was the direction of the scream.

It only took a minute to discover what was going on. Hiding behind a lush thicket, they saw a clearing in the middle of which was a tall rubber tree. Daubed on the tree in orange dye was some kind of intricate symbol; and at the tree's foot, in a ramshackle pile, were the bones of an animal. In front of it, frozen with terror, was one of Suliman's men, unable to take his eyes off the symbol. His gun was strapped around his back.

Ben and Halima stayed perfectly still, scarcely daring even to breathe. As they crouched behind their camouflage, the second man – taller and with a nasty scar on his face – burst into the clearing from the other side. He spoke harshly to his accomplice in Kikongo, and the smaller man responded by pointing at the symbol and the bones.

The taller man gave him a look of disgust. He strode up to the tree, pulled a knife from his belt and hacked two savage cuts into the bark across the symbol. Then he kicked the pile of bones, scattering them around the forest floor, before speaking once more and dragging his friend away from the clearing and into the trees, unaware that their quarry was watching them only a few metres away. As he did so, Ben saw something fall to the ground.

They remained still and silent for several minutes, until the sound of the men moving noisily through the bush had long faded away. Only then did they dare speak. 'What was all that about?' Ben asked, his voice hushed.

Halima's face was shocked. 'It is a symbol of sacrifice.'

'A what?'

'Someone has performed a sacrifice to the ancestors here. A goat, probably.'

'But who would come all this way into the forest just to do that?'

'I told you,' Halima replied. 'This area is sacred to the ancestors. It would be a powerful spell to make a sacrifice here.'

'Then why was he so scared? What made him scream?'

Halima looked sombre. 'Perhaps because he knows that what he is involved in is an insult to the ancestors.'

The two of them looked at the ramshackle pile of bones for a few silent moments.

'He dropped something,' Ben remembered. Gingerly, the two of them stood up and crept to the centre of the clearing. On the ground, just where the man had been standing, was a small pocket compass. Ben picked it up and used it to get his bearings. 'I think we've been going in the right direction,' he murmured, almost to himself. He flashed a momentary grin at Halima. 'Maybe your ancestors aren't such tricky customers after all.' He smiled. 'Maybe they've been giving us a helping hand.'

But Halima did not smile back. Her eyes were fixed on the symbol and the sacrifice. 'They should not have done what they did,' she intoned. 'Terrible things will happen to them. And to us, perhaps, for failing to stop them.' Ben instantly regretted his flippant remark.

She turned to him. 'Night is falling,' she said. 'I have no wish to remain here. Let us find somewhere else.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Having already spent one night in the jungle, Ben was used to certain things: the increased activity just before nightfall, the sudden and relative silence once the light had faded. But nothing, he thought, would ever make him get used to the complete and utter blackness.

He was hungry too, he realized once they halted for the night. Achingly hungry. But he knew better than to suggest to Halima that they forage for food; if she had seen anything edible, she would no doubt have pointed it out. And Ben wasn't likely to start eating strange berries and vegetation out here without knowing what they were. He'd just have to get used to the constant clamours of his stomach for food.

As soon as the blackness descended, his ears became superbly sensitive to every sound, and the dangers near and far became magnified in his mind a hundredfold. Every rustle was a silverback gorilla; every slither a black mamba rearing up to attack. He found himself unable to lie down, remaining instead in a sitting position, his arms held firmly around his knees.

'Are you awake?' Halima's voice was close and comforting.

'Yeah.'

Silence.

'Halima?' Ben said after a while. 'What was it like when your parents died?' As soon as he asked the question, he realized that it might have been somewhat insensitive. 'I mean… you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I just wondered.'

Halima thought before answering. 'It was like a nighttime that did not end,' she said quietly. 'They suffered very much. You are thinking of your father, yes?'

'A bit,' Ben said in a small voice.

'He is not African,' Halima said with sympathy. 'My parents were thin and often ill. He is stronger. Maybe he will survive.'

'Maybe.' Ben had seen the desperate state his dad had been in before he left. He wasn't convinced. 'Do you think Abele will be OK?' he asked, to change the subject.

'If what you say is true, Ben, I do not think anybody will be OK.'

She was right. Even if they succeeded in raising the alarm – and that was a big if – the village would have to be isolated. Nobody would be allowed in or out until the virus had run its course, killing those who were susceptible to it, sparing those who weren't.

Aside from being jungle-weary, Ben felt well enough; but he knew that that didn't mean a great deal.

'Abele can take care of himself,' he stated. Of that, at least, he was reasonably confident.

Abele was cold. He didn't understand why, as it was such a warm night. He watched his hand shaking in the dim light.

The wooden hut with its corrugated-iron roof in which he found himself would have been as dark as the rainforest had it not been for the smoky yellow light of a single candle. As night fell, Abele had thought it strange that he was being given this small creature comfort, but he soon understood that it was not out of concern for his well-being; it was so that, if they needed to check on him in the night, he would not be able to attack them under the cloak of darkness. If the glow of the candle from beneath the door disappeared, they told him, they would open up and fire randomly into the hut. And they said it like they meant it.

The door was locked – he knew that because he had heard the clunking of the padlock after he had been shut in – and he had heard the Kalashnikov-toting guard being relieved of his duty and replaced by someone else. How long ago that was, he couldn't tell. He knew there was no point calling out – down here, on the outskirts of the mine, there was no one to hear him – so he stood still, his brow furrowed in silent fury. Occasionally he would pace up and down the room to stop his limbs from becoming stiff. But only occasionally.