Free The Dark Side of the Island by Jack Higgins Page A

think you'll approve."
     
     
He led the way through the hall and along a cool whitewashed corridor. The room they entered was in darkness, but Lomax could see that it was circular with glass walls. Van Horn opened a sliding door and they stepped outside.
     
     
Lomax sucked in his breath sharply. The terrace was cantilevered and the immediate sensation was that they were floating in space. The darkness was perfumed with the scent of flowers and the great bowl of the night dipped to meet the sea, stars glittering into infinity.
     
     
Two hundred feet below, waves slopped lazily over the rocks in a white cream at the base of the cliffs. "I've never seen anything like it," Lomax breathed. "In a setting like this how could a man help but write?"
     
     
"That's what I used to think," Van Horn said. "And then came the war. Later, old Doctor Douplos passed on and I remembered that in a moment of youthful abbera-tion, I'd actually trained as a doctor. Since then I don't seem to have had the time."
     
     
"Perhaps when the war's over."
     
     
"Who knows?" Van Horn shook his head. "When I stand here and think of the stupidity of man I wonder whether I'll ever want to write about him again. At times like that I have to go and take a look at my collection to reassure myself that life is still worth living."
     
     
"Your collection?" Lomax said.
     
     
Van Horn nodded. "I'll show you if you like."
     
     
He led the way back inside, closed the sliding door and crossed the room.
     
     
Lomax heard the click of a switch, but was totally unprepared for what followed. On every side, a row of glass showcases, each with its own illumination, sprang into view to float in darkness.
     
     
But it was their contents which drew an involuntary gasp of admiration from him. They contained the most superb collection of Grecian pottery he had ever seen.
     
     
Van Horn moved beside him, face disembodied in the light of the nearest showcase. "There's more than a hundred thousand pounds' worth here-just by commercial standards. In actual fact, some of this stuff is priceless."
     
     
His voice had taken on an added warmth and Lomax moved from case to case, examining the contents with interest. He finally halted before a superb Grecian wine amphora at least three feet high, the red and black colours in the design still vivid after two thousand years.
     
     
"That can't be genuine and still in one piece."
     
     
"It came from a tomb under the Temple of Apollo on Rhodes. The Greek government were excavating there just before the war." Van Horn grinned. "By rights it should be in Athens, but I came to an arrangement with the rather underpaid young government official who found it."
     
     
"It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen," Lomax said.
     
     
"The handiwork of man, that's what still gives me hope, though what to make of some of the stuff they were churning out during the twenties and thirties and calling art, I'll never know."
     
     
"On the other hand, some of these are hardly representational." Lomax indicated a case containing several early Cretan figurines, mostly crude images of the Earth Mother.
     
     
Van Horn chuckled. "You've got a point there.'.
     
     
He put out the light and they went back along the corridor to the hall. As they went upstairs, he said, "I know we haven't got much time, but with luck we should be able to have a long talk in the morning. I expect you could use some sleep now."
     
     
He said good-night and Lomax went along to his own room and lay on the bed, listening to Boyd's easy breathing, and went over the night's events.
     
     
He kept thinking about Katina Pavlo, remembering how pale and tired she'd looked when he had last seen her. His last conscious thought was of her face glowing in the darkness and the strange thing was that she. was smiling at him.
     
     

"The Little Ship"
     
It was just after noon on the following day when Katina turned the cart into the main square of Kyros