We were saved, indeed. Pushing the holy relic before me, I worked my way along the wall, feeling for each handhold and talking to Wazim all the while, soothing him with words of encouragement. We edged along this way for untold ages. It is strange, but in the darkness, with nothing to mark either passage or progress, time seemed to stop; we floated in a timeless eternity with neither beginning nor end, only a very wet and endless present.

As I say, I do not know how long we continued this way, but there came a place where I reached for a handhold and instead of stone, my fingers touched wet moss or slime, and slipped; my head sank below the surface. I kicked my legs to right myself and touched something soft underfoot-not once only, but twice, and then again. It took me a moment to realize that it was mud.

The bottom of the canal was covered with soft, mushy silt. A short time later, I found I could stand and keep my head above water. 'See here, Wazim,' I said encouragingly, 'the water is growing more shallow. Get your feet under you and stand.'

We moved on a little further, and the level of the stream continued to drop as the channel grew wider; soon we were sloshing through waist-high water. I pushed the floating rood along beside me, and a short time after that, I noticed a watery grey dimness seeping into the air. After so long a time in the inky blackness of utter darkness, I did not trust my eyesight. But the wan gloaming held and strengthened, and after a time I could deny it no longer. Wazim noticed it, too. 'I think it is getting lighter, praise God's Almighty Christ,' he said, crossing himself in the Eastern manner.

'You surprise me, Wazim.'

'Why? Did you think you were the only Christian in all of Egypt?' He gave me a wry smile. 'The Copts may not be numbered among the mightiest, but what we lack in strength, we make up in stealth.'

'You knew-all this time you knew I was a Christian, yet you never said anything, you never let on. Why? Why did you not tell me, give me a sign or something?'

'A Christian in the khalifa's court must be very careful if he cares to keep his head on his shoulders.'

The water level continued to fall as the walls of the canal stretched further apart; I noticed that the roof had become bare rock, instead of brick, and soon we were slogging through water just over our knees. I picked up the rood and carried it on my shoulder.

We walked on and the light grew steadily brighter. It came to me that this was because it was growing lighter outside. While we toiled below ground, night had passed in the wider world and dawn was breaking; people were rising to begin their daily tasks, and I… I was free and on my way home with the prize I had set out to rescue.

The satisfaction I felt in this achievement was sharply diminished a few steps later when I realized I had lost my sheaf of papyri.

'Wazim, the bundle I gave you-where is it?'

He stopped and patted himself about the chest and back. 'I do not know, my friend.' He turned and looked into the solid black recesses of the tunnel behind us. 'I think the strap must have come loose when I fell out of the boat.' He turned mournful eyes to me. 'I am sorry, Da'ounk.'

'No matter,' I replied weakly, feeling the loss. All the time I had spent in that singular labour… gone. How absurd to bemoan such a trivial thing, I thought. The letter was merely a meagre attempt at consolation for my failure to return home and, all things considered, it was far better to have survived in the flesh. Still, foolish as it was, I regretted losing something that had occupied so much of my thought and care these many months. I felt as if a part of my life had been carelessly lopped off and discarded.

'See there, Da'ounk,' Wazim said, drawing me from my thoughts.

I looked where he was pointing and saw sunlight on a pale grey wall of stone a few hundred paces further ahead; a short time later we rounded a bend in the canal and reached our destination.

A massive iron portcullis covered the canal entrance, but this was so old and rusted there were gaps showing in the ironwork and it was but the chore of a moment to force a hole wide enough to squeeze through. A few more steps, following the stream around the base of a massive shoulder of fallen rock loosed from the overhanging cliffs above, and we were standing in the reed-fringed shallows, peering with dazzled eyes at a golden sunrise shimmering on the Nile.

Our underground journey had taken us to a place on the river below the city walls which rose sheer from the pale ochre cliffs above us. The sun was just rising in a glare of golden fire, and the air was already warm and heavy. The tall reeds and river grass bent in a light breeze, and I could hear the buzzing thrum of flies overhead as we stood in a sandy shoal, feeling the life-giving sunlight play over our faces.

Across the river, the low mud-brick huts of craftsmen and farmers glistened like pale gold in the early-morning light. A man and a boy led an ox along the bank, scaring two snow-white egrets into flight. Out on the water, a graceful low-hulled Egyptian ship was raising sail to begin the voyage north. All was so peaceful, bright, and calm, our tribulations of the previous night seemed small and insignificant, and very far away.

I looked up and down the riverbank, green- fringed with the stately plumes of river grass as far as the eye could see. While I was standing there, I felt something bump against my leg. I looked down to see a piece of wood from the wrecked boat floating out from the canal and, tangled by its broken strap, my bundle of parchments.

'Good news, my friend,' crowed Wazim cheerily. 'God has returned your writings to you!'

'I wish he had taken better care of them,' I replied, lifting the soggy bundle from the stream. Ink tinted water leaked from the corner of the bag. The pages inside would be a black-stained mushy mess. I had neither the heart to open the bundle, nor to throw it away; so I knotted the strap and slung the sodden load over my shoulder once again, and we started off.

By Wazim's reckoning we were some way south of the quay, so we started walking along the river's edge, quickly finding a cattle path which climbed up the bank and onto higher ground. The city wall angled away on a line running east, away from the river, which bent around a broad, rising bluff of honey-coloured stone.

My wet clothes began to dry in the sun and, although I was exhausted, I found my spirits soaring. Every step brought me closer to a glad reunion with Padraig, Sydoni, and Yordanus, and that much closer to home. The Holy Rood was heavy on my shoulder, but I did not mind the weight. Considering what the Saviour King had endured on my behalf, I would have carried it from one end of the world to the other and back.

After a while, we came to a cluster of huts fronting small green fields of beans, melons, onions, and garlic. Smoke from the morning cook fires drifted across the trail, and I could smell bread and meat cooking. The scent made my stomach rumble, reminding me that I had not eaten in some time. I stopped and looked around. Wazim asked why we were stopping. 'Do you think we might beg something to eat?' I wondered.

'Yes,' he said, glancing around, 'but not here.' He started away again.

'Why?' I wondered. 'Is it because they are Muhammedans?'

'Worse,' said Wazim, lowering his voice. 'They are pagans. Idol worshippers. Very bad people.'

'How can you tell?' It seemed like an ordinary holding to me. There were thousands along the wide, winding river.

He would say no more, so we moved on, passing through one small settlement after another, until coming upon yet another where Wazim stopped. 'There are Copts here,' he declared.