The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 62

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descending in line with the double row of -niches. He came level with

the enigmatic circle on the cliff face, but it was fifty feet from him,

and a growth of gaudy Coloured lichens had streaked and discotoured the

rock, partially obscuring the details, so that he still could not be

certain that. it was not a natural flaw. He passed it and went on down

as Aly and his team paid out the rope from above.

When he reached the surface of the water he slipped out of the sling and

dropped in. The water was very cold.

He trod water, gasping, until his body became acclimatized.

Then he gave Aly three tugs on the signal rope. While the canvas seat

was hauled up he swam to the side of the pool and held on to one of the

carved stone niches for support.

He had forgotten how gloomy and cold and lonely it was here in the

bottom of the chasm.

After a long delay he craned his head backwards and watched Royan come

into sight around the bulge of the overhang, dangling in the sling seat

and revolving slowly at the end of the nylon rope. She looked down and

waved at him cheerfully.

"Full marks to that girl," he grinned. "Not much puts the wind up her."

He wanted to shout encouragement, but he knew it was futile because the

thunder of the falls smothered all other sound. So he contented himself

with returning her wave.

Halfway down he saw her tugging frantically on the signal rope. Aly had

been warned to expect this, and her i4 descent was hatted immediately..

Then she leaned back in the sling, hanging on with only her left hand,

as she groped for Nicholas's binoculars which hung from their strap on

to her chest. She was twisted at an awkward angle as she held the

glasses to her eyes and tried to manipulate the focus wheel with one

hand. He saw that she was obviously having difficulty picking up the

round mark on the wall and keeping it in the field of the lens, for the

sling was swinging from side to side and at the same time revolving

slowly.

She struggled at the end of the rope for what seemed to Nicholas a very

long time, but probably was no more than a few minutes. Then abruptly

she dropped the binoculars on to her chest, threw back her head and let

out a scream that, despite the roar of falling water, carried clearly to

Nicholas a hundred feet beneath her. She was kicking her legs joyfully

and waving her free hand at him, wild with excitement, as Aly began

paying out the rope once more. Still screaming incoherently, she was

looking down at him with a face that seemed to light up the cathedral

gloom of the gorge.

"I can't hear you," he yelled back, but the falls defeated both their

efforts to communicate.

Royan was wriggling about in her seat, shouting and gesticulating

wildly, and now she let go the harness with her other hand and leaned

further out to keep him in sight as the sling revolved. She was still

twenty feet above the water when she almost lost her balance entirely,

and very nearly toppled backwards out of the sling.

"Careful there," he yelled up at her. "Those glasses are Zeiss. Two

thousand quid at the Zurich duty-free!'

IC

This time his vo'  must have carried, for she stuck her tongue out at

him in a schoolgirlish gesture. But her movements became more

circumspect. When her feet were almost touching the water she signalled

on the rope to stop her descent and hung there, fifty feet across the

pool from him.

"What did you find?" he shouted across.

"You were right, you wonderful man!'

"Is it man-made? Is it an inscription? Could you read it?, "Yes, yes and

yes to all three of your questions! She grinned triumphantly as she

teased him.

"Don't be infuriating. Tell me."

"Taita's ego got the better of him once again. He couldn't resist

signing his work." She laughed. "He has left us his autograph - the hawk

with a broken wing!'

"Marvellous! Plain bloody marvelous!the exalted.

"Proof that Taita was here, Nicky. To carve that cartouche, he must have

been standing on a scaffolding.

Our first guess was right. That niche you are holding on to is part of

his ladder to the bottom of the gorge."

"Yes, but why, Royan?" he yelled back at her. "Why was Taita down here?

There is no evidence of any excavation or building work."

They both looked around the gloomy cavern. Apart from the tiny rows of

niches, the walls were unbroken, smooth and inscrutable until they

plunged into the dark water.

Under the falls?" she shouted across. "Is there a cutback in the rock?

Can you get across there?"

He pushed off from the cliff, and swam towards the thundering chute of

water. Halfway across, the current caught him and he had to swim with

all his strength to make any headway against it. Thrashing the water

with flailing arms and kicking out strongly, he managed to reach a spur

of polished, algae-stick rock at the nearest end of the falls.

The water crashed over his head, but he edged his way along under the

rock step into the heart of the cascade.

Halfway across, the water overwhelmed him. It tore him off his

precarious perch, hurled him back into the basin below and swirled him

end over end. He surfaced in the middle of the pool, and once again had

to Swim with all his strength to break free of the grip of the current

and to reach the slack water below the wall again. He clung to his

handhold in the stone niche, and panted like a bellows.

"Nothing?" she called.

He shook his head, unable to answer until he had finally regained his

breath. Finally he managed: "Nothing.

It's a solid rock wall behind the falls." He gasped another breath, and

then invited sarcastically, "Next bright idea, madam?"

She was silent and he was glad of the respite. Then she called again,

"Nicky, how far do those niches go down?"

"You can see," he told her, "right to the one I am holding on to."

"What about below the surface?"

"Don't be silly, woman." He was getting cold and irritable. "How the

hell could there be cuttings below the surface?"

"Try!" she yelled almost as iff itably. He shook his head pityingly, and

drew a deep breath. Still clinging to his handhold, he extended his

limbs and body to their full stretch. Then his head went under the dark

surface as he groped down as far as he could reach with his toes.

Suddenly he shot back, snorting for air with a startled look on his

face. "By Jove!" he shouted. "You are right!

There is another niche down there!'

"I hate to say I told you so." Even at that range he could see the smug

expression on her face.

"What are you? Some kind of witch?" Then he broke off and rolled his

eyes heavenward in despair. "I know what you are going to ask me to do

next."

"How far do the niches go down?" she called in honeyed tones. "Will you

dive down for me, dear Nicky?"

"That's it," he said. "I knew it. I am going to speak to my shop

steward. This is slave labour. From now onwards I am on strike."

"Please, Nicky!'

He hung in the water'pumping air in and out of his lungs,

hyperventilating, flushing his . bloodstream with oxygen to increase his

underwater endurance to its limits.

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