The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 53

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down which he had tumbled, and then still turning, the narrow exit from

the basin through which the river resumed its mad career downstream. But

for the moment he was safe and quiet here in the back-eddy below the

falls. The current pushed him against the side of the basin, close in

beneath the chute of the falls. He reached out and found a handhold on a

clump of mossy fern growing out of a crack in the wall.

Here, at last, he had a chance to rest and consider his position. It did

not take him long, however, to realize that his only way out of the

chasm was to follow the course of the river and to take his chances with

whatever lay downstream. He could expect rapids, if not another set of

falls like this one that thundered away close beside him.

If only there were some way up the wall! He looked up, but his spirits

quailed as he considered the overhang that formed a cathedral roof high

above him.

While he still stared upwards, something caught his eye. Something too

regular and regimented to be natural.

There was a double row of dark marks running vertically up the wall of

rock, beginning at the surface of the water and climbing up the wall to

the rim almost two hundred feet overhead. He relinquished his hold on

the clump of fern and dog-paddled slowly down to where these marks

reached the water.

As he reached them he realized that they were niches, cut about four

inches square into the wall. The two rows were twice the spread of his

arms apart, and the niche in one row lined up in the horizontal plane

exactly with its neighbour in the second row.

Thrusting his hand into the nearest opening, he found that it was deep

enough to accommodate his arm to the elbow. This opening, being below

the flood level of the waters, was smoothed and worn, but when he looked

to those higher up the wall, above the water mark, he saw that they had

retained their shape much more clearly. The edges were sharp and square.

"My word, how old are they to have been worn like that?" he marvelled.

"And how the hell did anybody get down here to cut them?"

He hung on to the niche nearest him and studied the pattern in the cliff

face. "Why would anybody go to all that amount of trouble?" He could

think of no reason nor purpose. "Who did this work? What would they want

down here?" It was an intriguing mystery.

Then suddenly something else caught his eye. It was a circular

indentation in the rock, precisely between the two rows of niches and

above the high-water mark. From so far below it looked to be perfectly

round - another shape that was not natural.

He paddled further around, trying to reach a position from which he

would have a clearer view of it. It seemed to be some sort of rock

engraving, a plaque that reminded him strongly of those marks in the

black boulders that flank the Nile below the first cataract at Aswan,

placed there in antiquity to measure the flood levels of the river

waters. But the light was too poor and the angle too acute for him to be

certain that it was man-made, let alone to recognize or read any script

or lettering that might have been incorporated in the design.

Hoping to devise some way of climbing closer, he tried to use the stone

niches as aids. With a great deal of effort, usin them as foot- and

hand-holds, he managed to lift himself out of the water. But the

distances between holds were too great and he fell back with a splash,

swallowing more water.

"Take it easy, my lad - you still have to swim out of here. No profit in

exhausting yourself. You will just have to come back another day to get

a closer look at whatever it is up there."

Only then did he realize how close he was to total exhaustion. This

water coming down from the Choke mountains was still cold with the

memories of the high snows. He was shivering until his teeth chattered.

"Not far from hypothermia. Have to get out of here now, while you still

have the strength."

Reluctantly he pushed himself away from the wall of rock and paddled

towards the narrow opening through which the Dandera river resumed the

headlong rush to join her mother Nile. He felt the current pick him up

and bear him forward, and he stopped swimming and let it take him.

"The Devil's roller-coaster!" he told himself. "Down and down she goes,

and where she stops nobody knows."

The first set of rapids battered him. They seemed endless, but at last

he was spewed out into the run of slower water below them. He floated on

his back, taking full advantage of this respite, and looked upwards.

There was very little light showing above him, for the rock almost met

overhead. The air was dank and dark and stank of bats. However, there

was little time to examine his surroundings, for once again the river

began to roar ahead of him. He braced himself rilentally for the assault

of turbulent waters, and went cascading down the next steep slide.

After a while he lost track of how far he had been carried, and how many

cataracts he had survived. It was a constant battle against the cold and

the pain of sodden lungs and strained muscle and overtaxed sinew. The

river mauled him.

Suddenly the light changed. After the gloom at the bottom of the high

cliffs it was as though a searchlight had been shone directly into his

eyes, and he felt the force and ferocity of the river abating. He

squinted up into bright sunlight, and then looked back and saw that he

had passed out below the archway of pink rock into that familiar part of

the river which he had explored with Royan. Coming up ahead of him was

the rope suspension bridge, and he had just sufficient strength

remaining to paddle feebly towards the small beach of white sand below

it.

One of the hairy tattered ropes dangled to the surface of the water, and

he managed to catch hold of it as he drifted past and swing himself in

towards the beach. He tried to crawl fully ashore, but he collapsed with

his face in the sand and vomited out the water he had swallowed. It felt

so good just to be able to lie without effort and rest.

His lower body still hung into the river, but he had neither the

strength nor the inclination to drag himself fully ashore.

"I am alive," he marvelled, and fell into a state halfway between sleep

and unconsciousness.

  never knew how long he had been lying like that, but when he felt a

hand shaking his shoulder, and a voice calling softly to him, he was

annoyed that his rest had been disturbed.

"Effendi, wake up! They seek you. The beautiful Woizero seeks you."

With a huge effort Nicholas roused himself and sat up slowly. Tamre

knelt over him, grinning and waggling his head.

(Please, effendi, come with me. The Woizero is searching the river bank

on the far side. She is weeping and calling your name,' Tamre told him.

He was the only person Nicholas had ever met who contrived to look

worried and to grin at the same time. Nicholas looked beyond him and saw

that it must be late afternoon, for the sun sat fat and red on the lip

of the escarpment.

While still sitting in the sand Nicholas checked his body, making an

inventory of his injuries. He ached in every muscle, and his legs and

arms were scraped and bruised, but he could detect no broken bones. And

although there was a tender lump on'the side of his he ad where he had

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