‘It’s the little boy,’ Hilda said.
‘What little boy?‘I asked.
‘The little boy who was sucking his thumb by the fountain when we drove into Santo Francisco.’
Hacket handed the small bundle up to Hilda. She took the little fellow in her arms. His brown eyes opened wide in sudden fear, then he smiled and closed them again, snuggling close to her breast.
‘He’s probably lousy,’ Hacket said. ‘But you can get cleaned up later.’
He climbed in and we started off again. I caught Maxwell’s eyes looking up at me. His lower lip was in shreds where he’d bitten it. ‘How much farther?’ he asked. I scarcely recognised his voice.
I looked past Zina’s skirt along the road ahead. I could see the entrance to the villa now and beyond it, down the straight, tree-lined ribbon of the road I caught a glimpse of Avin lying in a huddle under a cloud of dust. ‘Not far,’ I said. I didn’t tell him a great sea of black lava was reaching into the village. Away to the left, beyond the villa, the air shimmered with the heat of the other lava flow. It ran past the back of the villa and on down towards Avin. On either side of us was lava — nothing but lava. ‘How’s the leg?’ I asked.
‘Pretty bad.’
The dust and sweat on his face had caked into a mask that split and cracked as he moved his lips.
‘I wish we had some morphia,’ Hilda whispered to me.