در غار

Chapter eight

In the cave

I’m not Superman. I’m not even Superwoman. But I did swim under the rocks to the beach on the other side. When you are afraid, you can do things that you can’t usually do.

After that I was very, very tired, so I sat on the beach and looked at the sea. It was late afternoon and there was no wind.

The sea was like glass. When the sea is quiet like that, the Greeks say that the sea is like oil. Sometimes when I fly to Greece, I look down and there is the sea below, like glass, like oil.

It is the colour of gold and the islands are blue. There is nothing more beautiful than looking down on to the Greek islands from the air. That is the gold that I love. That is the real gold of the Greek islands. The sun on the sea.

I sat on the beach for a while and then I stood up. The cave was on one side of the beach and it was big enough to walk into.

‘What do I do now,’ I thought. ‘I can’t stay here. Takis isn’t going to come and help me. The men are going to kill him. They are going to kill him because he saved my life. I must do something.’

The cave was full of big boxes, One of the boxes was half open. I looked inside. It was full of guns, machine guns.

At that moment I wanted to be Superwoman. I wanted to say: ‘Ah! a machine gun, just what I want.’ Superwoman could make a boat from the side of one of the boxes, and jump onto the yacht. She could take a gun and kill all the bad men and save Takis. But I wasn’t Superwoman. I didn’t know how to use a gun. I didn’t know what to do.

I walked round the cave looking for something, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. I wanted to save Takis, but I didn’t know what to do.

‘I need to find the mines,’ I thought. The back of the cave was dark. I put my hand in my pocket to get my torch, so I could see. There are always three things in my pockets. One is a torch to help me see in the dark, one is a magnifying glass and one is my Swiss army knife. All archaeologists use knives. We use them for cutting. We use them when we find things in the ground.

‘If I could get back to the yacht,’ I thought, ‘I could cut Takis free.’

I walked down the beach. I couldn’t swim back under the rock. I was too tired to swim underwater again. But I could swim slowly round the rock, back to the yacht. It was getting dark now. No-one was going to see me. I walked into the sea and began to swim. Then I heard it. It was the sound of the yacht. It was getting louder. Then I saw the yacht coming round the rocks and straight towards me.

I began to swim back to the beach but someone saw me. I heard Mike’s voice: ‘It’s her. It’s the woman, Liz!’