The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 64

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water and to breathe.

He wallowed the're like a waterlogged carcass, face down and dying. Then

he felt Royan's fingers lock into the hair in the back of his head, and

the cold air on his face as she lifted it clear.

"Nicky!" she screamed at him. "Breathe, "Nicky, breathe!'

He opened his mouth and let out a spray of water and saliva and stale

air, and then gagged and gasped.

"You're still alive! Oh, thank God. You were down for so long. I thought

you had drowned."

As he coughed and fought for air and his senses returned, he realized in

a vague way that she must have dropped out of the sting seat and come to

his aid.

"You were under for so long. I could not believe it." She held his head

up, clinging with her free hand to the niche in the wall. "You are going

to be all right now. I have got you. just take it easy for a while. It's

going to be all right." It was amazing how much her voice encouraged

him.

The air tasted good and sweet and he felt his strength slowly returning.

"We have to get you up," she told him. "A few minutes more to get

yourself together, and then I will help you into the sling."

She swam with him across to the dangling sling and signalled to the men

at the top of the cliff to lower it into the water. Then she held the

folds of canvas open so that he could slip his legs into them.

"Are you all right, Nicky?" she demanded anxiously.

"Hang on until you get to the top." She placed his hands on the side

ropes of the harness. "Hold tight!'

"Can't leave you down here," he blurted groggily.

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "Just have Aly send the seat down again

for me."

When he was halfway up he looked down and saw her head bobbing in the

dark waters. She looked very small and lonely, and her face pate and

pathetic.

"Guts!" His voice was so weak and hoarse that he did not recognize it.

"You've got real guts." But already he was too high for the words to

carry down to her.

When they had got Royan safely up out of the ravine, Nicholas ordered

Aly to dismantle the gantry and hide the sections in the thorn scrub.

From the helicopter it would be highly visible and he did not wish to

stir Jake Helm's curiosity.

He was in no shape to give the men a hand, but lay in the shade of one

of the Thorn trees with Royan tending to him. He was dismayed to find

how much his near-drowning had taken out of him. He had a blinding

headache, caused by oxygen starvation. His chest was very painful and

stabbed him every time he breathed: in his struggles he must have torn

or sprained something.

He was impressed with Royan's forbearance. She made no attempt to

question him about his discoveries in the bottom of the gorge, and

seemed genuinely more concerned with his well being than with the

progress of their exploration.

When she helped him to his feet and they started back towards camp, he

moved like an old man, lame and stiff. Every muscle and sinew in his

body ached. He knew that the lactic acid and nitrogen that had built up

in his tissues would take some time to be reabsorbed and dispersed.

Once they reached camp Royan led him to his hut and fussed over him as

she settled him under the mosquito net.

By this time he was feeling a lot better, but he neglected to inform her

of this fact. It was pleasant to have a woman caring for him again. She

brought him a couple of aspirin tablets and a steaming mug of tea, stiff

with sugar. He was putting it on a little when he asked weakly for a

second mugful.

Sitting beside his bed, she solicitously watched him drink it. "Better?"

she asked, when he had finished.

"The odds are two to one that I Will survive," he told her, and she

smiled.

"I can see that you are better. Your cheek is showing again. You gave me

an awful scare, you know."

"Anything to get your attention."

"Now that we have decided that you will live, tell me what happened.

What sort of trouble did you run into down there in the pool?"

"What you really want to know is what I found down there. Am I correct?"

"That too, she admitted.

Then he told her everything that he had discovered and how he had been

caught in the inflow of the underwater sink-hole. She listened without

interruption, and even when he had finished speaking she said nothing

for a while, but frowned with concentrated thought.

At last she looked up at him. "You mean that Taita was able to take

those stone niches right down to the very bottom of the pool, fifty feet

below the surface? and when he nodded, she was silent again. Then she

said, "How on earth did he accomplish that? What are your thoughts on

the subject?" -Tour thousand years ago the water level may have been

lower. There may have been a drought year when the river dried up, and

enabled him to get in there. How am I doing?"

"Not a bad try," she admitted, "but then why go to all the trouble of

building a scaffold? Why not just use the dry river bed as an access?

Then again, surely the attraction of the spot for Taita was the river.

If it was dry, then it would be just like a thousand other places in

this gorge.

No, I have a feeling that the fact that it was so inaccessible was the

main, if not the only, reason he chose to wo there."

"I suspect that you are correct," he agreed.

"So if the river was running, even at itS lowest level as it is now, how

on earth did he manage to carve those niches below the surface? And what

would be the point in having scaffolding under water?"

"Beats me. I have no idea he admitted.

"All right, let's leave that for the moment. Now lets go over your

description of the sink-hole that almost sucked you in. Did you form any

estimate of the size of the opening?"

He shook his head. "It is almost totally dark down there. I could not

see more than two or three feet in front of me."

"Was the entrance directly between the two tows of niches?"

"No, not directly," he said thoughtfully. "It was slightly to one side.

I hit the bottom of the pool with my feet, and was just about to push

off when it grabbed me."

"So it must be at the very bottom of the pool, and slightly downstream

from the scaffolding. You say that the entrance seemed to have a square

coping?"

"I am not absolutely sure of that - remember that I could see very

little. But that was the impression I received."

"It may have been another man-made structure, then perhaps some type of

adit shaft driven into the side of the pool?"

"It's possible," he agreed reluctantly. "But on the other hand it could

just as easily be a natural fault in the strata that the river is

draining into."

She stood up to leave, and he demanded, "Where are you going?"

"I won't be long. I am going to my hut to fetch my notes, and the

material from the stele. Back in a moment."

When she returned she sat on the floor beside his bed, with her legs

drawn up under her in that double-jointed feminine fashion. As she

spread her papers around her, he pulled up the edge of the mosquito net

and looked down at what she was doing.

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