Read The Rings of Poseidon for Free Online Page B

one of those forensic fellas the police use," he said,
"You want as much evidence as you can get, I suppose. Shall I
fingerprint it? Then he added in a more serious tone, "I've never
realised that archeological digs were so serious."
    "Oh, we're serious right enough." Alan told
him as he and the other workers stepped back out of the way to give
him a better field of vision as he photographed remains.
    "We're nothing if not thorough." said
Alicia.
    "I'll give you that one," Steve told her.
    While the snapping and the chatting had been
going on, Frank had been watching Gill stop her team while she
carefully dusted something with a soft brush.
    "Look at this!" she called excitedly to
Alicia, who tore herself from Alan's excavations and went over to
Gill.
    "What?" she questioned, peering.
    "Looks like more human remains," said
Frank.
    The two of them stood watching as Gill and
her team dusted sand off what looked like heel bones, carefully
trowelled away more of the sand and dusted more bones. Feet and
ankles were uncovered.
    Things were slowed down somewhat by the fact
that he or she was lying feet towards the entrance and head
outwards, so the skull end of the bones was away from the digging
and it was necessary to dig down very carefully through a deep
layer of sand.
    "He or she must have fallen away from the
entrance" speculated Manjy.
    "Oh I don't know," said Gill, "he/she may
have been pushed."
    "Or he may have been dragged there after he
was killed, there's nothing to say one way or the other," said
Frank looking down from the edge of the trench.
    "Well one thing's certain," Gill commented to
him. "This is hardly a place to leave a body. This is more or less
ground level, so he wasn't buried and they didn't move it or come
back for it."
    Frank conceded the point. "Yeh," he said,
"And it may not even have been male." To Alicia he added, "We'd
better get Steve over to take some photographs before we disturb
anything and I'm itching to take a closer look."
    "Steve's already here," said Steve, who had
joined the watchers.
    When he had made the photographic record of
the find, they returned to uncovering and studying the remains, and
it was at this stage that Frank made the discovery.
    The ring was made of copper but it seemed to
be coated with something which had prevented it from tarnishing or
rotting away with verdigris the way that copper tends to do. That
the figure had been wearing the ring at the time of its death Frank
was in no doubt - a finger bone was still inside it! He was also
fairly certain that the body - if you can call a pile of bones a
body - had been wearing an amulet or talisman of some sort on a
cord, possibly of hide.
    Alicia was as inclined to speculate as
anybody else. "I wonder whether he was, or she was, trying to get
out of the village," she said, eyeing the remains, "and either
didn't make it because he was injured or ran into somebody who was
lying in wait."
    "Maybe," said Frank, "Or he may have been
trying to keep out some third party and got killed for his
trouble.
    "Since you've got all the photos you want,
shall I take the ring and the amulet inside, so that you can
examine them in the cabin?" asked Gill.
    "Yes, take them in," answered Alicia, "
They'd be safer in the office. Anyway it's getting dark and it's
looking like rain. In any case, I've worked you all long
enough."
    Clouds were banking up threateningly to the
south west and shutting out the lingering sunset ominously. Gill
began the process of picking up the ring and amulet with as little
disturbance as possible, while the others downed their tools and
turned back across the field towards the camp.
    Manjy saw the bird watcher in the distance
but paid no particular attention. "Keeping an eye on the nest." she
thought in passing. She didn't notice that he had been watching
them through his binoculars for some time.
     
    Darkness fell early, but there was no
immediate rain. With the aid of the generator chugging quietly
under a canvass