THE LOST FOREST

Ennis had no illusions about the risks of such adventures; he sought no challenge, or proof of his own mortality, leaving his body to rot in a dark corner of the humid rainforest. His own justification was more down to earth - business - searching for rare examples of ethnic art and antique heirlooms to be sold at a profit in his galleries... The endless staccato noise of the motor was hypnotic, only the rush through the rapids broke the monotony as they pushed upstream, passing isolated Iban longhouses with their small fields of pepper and mountain rice. It was just after midday when they caught a glimpse of the longhouse where they planed to spend their first night, it lay at a bifurcation in the river almost hidden by the forest. There was a small floating jetty built of bamboo poles bound together by rattan cords with a couple of dugout pirogues moored alongside swinging gently in the stream... A little further on he heard the noise of running water, he swung his torch across the floor and saw a small stream of water crossing the gallery, it had cut a shallow gully in the floor that seemed to be composed of deposits accumulated over eons of time, earth and other debris carried by water or flooding, droppings of bats or other creatures that had inhabited the cave, or perhaps it was simply airborne dust and other matter drawn in by the air currents that ventilated the galleries. Ennis shone the torch over the stream's irregular bed; a reflection caught his eye, a pale coloured stone embedded in bank just above the water